Gov. Gavin Newsom once again called on local government leaders to clear homeless encampments, introducing a model ordinance that counties and cities can adopt to ban makeshift tent communities near freeways, parks and on sidewalks throughout the state.
Newsom also announced on Monday, May 12, the allocation of $3.3 billion toward various projects across the state to expand housing and treatment options for people experiencing homelessness. Of the nearly 125 projects receiving funding from the state, one perinatal substance use disorder facility in Orange County was listed among the first round of funding announced.
During an afternoon press conference, the governor said that while some local elected officials are doing their part in addressing homelessness, not everyone is carrying their weight.
“It is time to take back the streets. It’s time to take back the sidewalks. It’s time to take these encampments and provide alternatives. The state is giving you more resources than ever. And it’s time, I think, to just end the excuses and call the question about accountability,” Newsom said. “I’m not interested anymore, period, full stop, (in) funding failure. I want to see real results.”
The state has created an accountability tool, accountability.ca.gov, that allows residents to access data showing the progress being made by their local governments on housing, homelessness and behavioral health issues.
While large encampments have been cleared out around Orange County in recent years, the latest point-in-time count of the homeless population recorded 4,173 people living on the streets in early 2024.
Last June, the Supreme Court ruled that cities could enforce bans on people sleeping outside in public places regardless of whether or not a city had enough shelter beds to house them. In July, Newsom followed up with an executive order for state agencies to remove homeless encampments on state property, urging local cities and counties to do the same.
Newsom said he’s interested in revitalizing California’s quality of life.
“I’ve also been very, very, very focused and very honest with my friends that are running these cities, large and small, that I wanted to see a renewed vigor and focus on what’s happening on the streets, tents and encampments,” Newsom said. “It simply cannot continue. It cannot be a way of life living out on the streets, on sidewalks, in what almost become permanent structures … We cannot allow that to continue.”
Newsom’s model ordinance includes prohibitions on “persistent camping” in one location, a ban on encampments that block sidewalks and a requirement that local officials provide notice and make every reasonable effort to identify and offer shelter before clearing an encampment.
Michael Sean Wright, founder of Wound Walk OC, a street medicine team, said the county has come a long way since 2018 when a mass encampment growing along the Santa Ana riverbed prompted a major shift in local officials’ attention to homelessness in Orange County. But the county still falls short in the number of beds available, especially ADA-compliant beds, to meet needs, he said.
“We all want a solution. We all want this to change,” Wright said, adding that there needs to be increased emphasis on the medical and health impacts of homelessness. “Medical emphasis has an opportunity for us to touch the population and get a rapid assessment of what is the thing that’s most likely to get them inside, because that’s our goal — get people inside.”
“Leaving people in encampments is inhumane,” Wright added. “Imagine having a cut or scrape, and you’re living in conditions with waste, bacteria, garbage, runoff, environmental pollution. That’s going to affect the whole body, from skin infections to deep abscesses to upper respiratory infections to ultimately sepsis and death.”
A flurry of cities in Orange County adopted anti-camping protocols following the Supreme Court’s ruling, including Irvine, Fullerton, Anaheim and Santa Ana.
Fullerton Mayor Fred Jung is hopeful that Newsom’s model ordinance signals a change in tune for how Sacramento helps municipalities take on and fund solutions to those issues.
“I think this is a start, but it’s a meaningful one because he’s the executive leader of our state,” Jung said in a phone interview on Monday. “My hope is that the governor doubles down and puts financial resources behind it.”
Jung said the city conducts monthly “encampment cleanups,” costing Fullerton nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year.
Anaheim city spokesperson Mike Lyster said city leaders don’t allow encampments to grow because they are inhumane and unsustainable.
“We do not have homeless encampments in our city,” Lyster said. “We do, of course, have people living in homelessness, and we address it every day with outreach, enforcement where needed, … with an array of services as well as shelter.”
Letting people live on the streets is unsustainable and unacceptable, Lyster added, and a model ordinance could pave the way to getting more people experiencing homelessness to accept help.
Critics say punitive bans make it even harder for homeless people to find stable housing and employment.
“My immediate reaction was that this is a distraction from a state budget that isn’t likely to have funding for housing and homelessness,” said Alex Visotzky with the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Organizations representing California’s cities and counties have balked at the implication that they are to blame, and say they need sustained funding.
“Clearing encampments may be the most visible part of this crisis, but without addressing the underlying root causes of homelessness, the cycle will only repeat itself,” said Carolyn Coleman, executive director and CEO of the League of California Cities.
She said that eight in 10 cities have policies to address encampments.
The California State Association of Counties said the state has not provided as much money to address homelessness as it says it has and that half of the money has gone to housing developers.
Orange County supervisors Don Wagner and Doug Chaffee said the county has been addressing homelessness and encampments head-on for years now.
“Orange County is going to continue to stay in the fight. The county’s got an ordinance, but most of our land is within cities, not unincorporated, so it’s the cities that need to make sure their ordinances are state of the art and they’re being enforced,” Third District Supervisor Wagner said. “We do have a homeless issue, no question about it, but we, long ago, got ahead of the encampment problem and continue to try to stay on top of it.”
Chaffee said the governor’s push to ban encampments fails to provide for preventative measures that can address the reasons one becomes homeless.
“We will continue to have homelessness issues until we address those underlying problems,” Chaffee said, adding that banning encampments does nothing to address where the people experiencing homelessness should go. “I question whether Sacramento has ever really understood or helped us much. We do our thing, and I think we’ve done quite a bit.”
Staff writer Jonathan Horwitz and the Associated Press contributed to this report.