Newsom once more urges cities to ban homeless camps

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday once more urged California cities and counties to ban homeless encampments, growing his strain marketing campaign on native governments to observe the state’s lead and take away tents from sidewalks and different public property.

“There’s nothing compassionate about letting folks die on the streets,” Newsom mentioned in a press release. “Native leaders requested for sources — we delivered the most important state funding in historical past. They requested for authorized readability — the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a mannequin they’ll put to work instantly, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and join folks to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There aren’t any extra excuses.”

The Democratic governor launched a mannequin ordinance for native governments to undertake that his workplace described as a place to begin earlier than jurisdictions craft their very own insurance policies. Newsom’s plan asks locals to ban persistent tenting in a single location and encampments that block sidewalks. It additionally requires native officers to aim to supply shelter earlier than eradicating a short lived dwelling.

Newsom coupled the announcement with the discharge Monday of $3.3 billion in funding from Proposition 1, authorized by voters in 2024, for communities to increase behavioral well being housing and therapy choices for his or her mentally ailing and homeless populations. The funding will not be contingent on cities banning encampments.

The funding provides to $27 billion the state has already given to native governments to handle homelessness, a difficult political concern in California.

Advocates for the homeless repeatedly argue that the state doesn’t have sufficient supportive housing and shelter beds to funnel these faraway from tents and sidewalks into higher situations. The governor typically voices his frustration over the dearth of progress on the native degree, casting homelessness as a humanitarian disaster and a well being and security concern.

Final yr Newsom issued an govt order requiring state companies to take away homeless encampments on state property and equally urged native governments to do the identical.