Governor Gavin Newsom announced $827 million in state funding on Tuesday to help address the state’s homelessness crisis across 37 jurisdictions, including cities within Los Angeles County.
While Los Angeles will receive the bulk of the funding, cities including Pasadena, Long Beach and Glendale will also receive funding to tackle homelessness in their jurisdictions.
Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass held a press conference at the Downtown Women’s Center to discuss the funding that will aid and address homelessness in Los Angeles. The funding advocates for collaboration, transparency, and accountability, Newsom said.
“People are dying on our watch,” Newsom said. ”These kids are struggling and suffering.”
He said that seniors are out on the streets and that there is a commitment to do better.
“No one is naive about the challenges of this issue,” Newsom said.
In July, Newsom faced criticism because of his executive order to clear out homeless encampments from the cities across the state and to fine them for sleeping outside. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that it is not a violation of the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
During the conference, Newsom addressed the key aims of the initiative: accountability, transparency and expectations. He said the new funding aims to promote these objectives that weren’t upheld before.
When asked how he would ensure the money goes directly to unhoused people or organizations supporting them, Newsom turned to the other speakers, including Felicia Adams Kellum, CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).
“It’s all about collaboration,” she said, “And each of us play a part.”
Newsom added that the initiative requires monthly data reports to prove measurable outcomes.
On the other hand, Bass said tangible results require a comprehensive approach and acknowledged “areas of dysfunction.”
“One of the historic areas of dysfunction was bickering and finger-pointing between different levels of government,” she said.
Bass launched her own initiative called Inside Safe in 2022, which works with providers across Los Angeles to move people from tents to encampments and prevent encampments in the future. The initiative provided shelter for 3,254 people since December 2022 and permanently housed 741.
Kellum said the latest count showed the first reduction in unsheltered homelessness in years.
Efforts to solve homelessness and housing issues are pressing matters in Los Angeles that all three officials called attention to, but the new funding seems to drive progress to solve it.
“The state vision is realized locally, localism is determinative, it is bottom up, not top-down,” he said. “This is a crisis, and it requires a crisis mindset.”