SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — A California Senate committee heard pleas Thursday from government officials and others about $1 billion in funding for homelessness programs, an ongoing allocation that Governor Gavin Newsom didn’t include in his budget.
The state’s homeless housing assistance and prevention program, called HHAP, has sent almost $4 billion to cities, counties and other entities over the past several years. The money has gone toward homeless and housing programs, and was touted at a Thursday Senate budget subcommittee as critical.
However, Newsom's proposed budget for the fiscal year has no funding for the program, despite the Legislature in 2023 stating its intent to have a round that would start this year. The governor did indicate that he would work with lawmakers on providing homelessness funding to local governments.
“This is an absolutely necessary investment,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg told the subcommittee. “Without this, the bottom drops out.”
According to Steinberg, for every 10 people who leave homelessness in his city, 13 people fall into it. The housing assistance and prevention program has enabled Sacramento to increase the number of nightly shelter beds.
The program has flexibility, which other state programs lack. This is essential, as cities and counties must deal with homelessness in different ways.
According to Graham Knaus, CEO of the California State Association of Counties, Los Angeles County has used its program dollars to increase its housing and supportive housing stock. San Diego County has used the money for people who have almost completed prison sentences or those recently released from incarceration.
The latter program, which has had about 100 people use it, has close to a 100% success rate.
“That’s what we should be funding. Those things and many like it," Knaus said, adding, “The key ingredient about this is flexibility."
Annalee Trujillo, director of the Pala Band of Mission Indians, said the program has been significant for her tribe because of the flexibility. Prior to the program, the state had allocated some $130 million for tribes to tap into. However, only $40 million was awarded and, out of that, $6 million released to tribes.
Trujillo said the state didn’t understand tribal sovereignty and governments. The homeless housing assistance and prevention program gave tribal governments the ability to spend the money as needed.
Flexibility is essential as is the program’s multi-year duration, said Tamera Kohler, CEO of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness in San Diego. Federal dollars come with restrictions, while the program has enabled San Diego County to, for example, negotiate with landlords.
“HHAP is absolutely critical to fund shelter beds,” Kohler said.
Knaus offered the subcommittee three recommendations. He asked for the $1 billion in funds to be a part of the 2024-25 fiscal year budget, to remove the success penalty — asking that the state stop cutting funding when local governments see reductions in homelessness — and provide a minimum allocation.
State Senator Roger Niello, a Fair Oaks Republican, said the program is the only one in the state that provides the flexibility officials want. However, he also pointed to the state’s significant budget issues this year.
“We have a horrible budget deficit and in my opinion it’s probably getting worse,” Niello said.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office late last year said a series of factors, including later-than-usual tax returns, left a large deficit in both the current and future fiscal year budgets. It currently estimates that budget gap at $73 million. Newsom, calling himself optimistic, has said the shortfall is closer to $38 billion.
The Legislature last week cut about $17 billion from the deficit by pulling back money not yet spent, borrowing and delaying expenses.
Thursday’s subcommittee hearing came about a week after the state auditor released a report on California’s homelessness programs which found they haven’t been properly tracked and evaluated. The auditor also said he didn’t have enough data for a thorough review.
On Thursday, Newsom announced almost $200 million in new money to get people out of homeless camps and into homes. He also introduced increased oversight of such funding.
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