Gov. Newsom unveils funding accountability tool to see how your community is addressing homelessness
Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a new online homeless funding accountability tool Monday.
It gives you a way to check on your community's status in addressing homelessness.
Across the state of California, many homeless encampments have been cleaned up, but unfortunately, too many of them are still there.
A situation he now calls unacceptable.
"Without more focus on encampments, without more focus on unsheltered homeless, I am not inclined to continue to support the funding to the cities and counties," Newsom said in a virtual press conference.
The governor announced a new online accountability tool to show how much money counties across the state are getting to fight homelessness, how much they're spending and how they're doing.
"We need to see results, and I think the last thing anyone wants to see is presentations like this from elected officials. They just want to see their streets and sidewalks cleaned up. They want to feel safe again. They want to know that tax dollars are being well and wisely invested, and they want to have access to basic information to hold us to a higher level of accountability," Newsom said.
The website shows a year-over-year drop in homelessness of 0.2% in Los Angeles County and a 3.4% drop in Ventura County.
Los Angeles region to get $380 million in state funding to combat homelessness
However, other counties are not doing as well.
According to the website, San Bernardino County saw a jump in homelessness of 1.4%, Riverside County a 14% increase and Orange County a 21% jump.
The governor announced more than $700 million in new homeless housing, assistance and prevention funding this year, but nothing has been allocated yet.
He says it all depends on how individual counties are doing.
"This is calling balls and strikes. If we see that red, we got to call you out. And that's the final thing I'm going to say. If there's more money, if we do align with the legislature in terms of supporting additional funding as it relates to having a housing element, as it relates to a focus on unsheltered and a disproportionately even more aggressive focus on encampments. We also have to have a clawback provision if we continue to see red. We just can't fund red because that's funding failure," Newsom said.
