The announcement follows Newsom’s 2024 executive order, which directed encampment cleanups after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling granted state and local governments more authority to remove them.
The governor’s office stated that the task force will prioritize sites deemed unsafe and collaborate with local governments to connect individuals with shelter, health care and substance use services.
So much is not covered in rage bait titles.
this is the same tactic that got us trump this second time.
When all encampments are deemed unsafe and local services are already stretched to the breaking point, I think we can be justified in calling this out for the performative anti-homeless bullshit it is.
Nothing short of a complete reorganization of the economy so that working class people are prioritized instead of billionaires will fix this problem though.
Agreed with the second statement but the first is just abandoning people instead of helping them and that is negligence.
Newsom wants to clear out homeless encampments without expanding the services necessary to ensure they won’t just build an encampment somewhere else. That seems like abandonment to me.
without expanding the services necessary to ensure they won’t just build an encampment somewhere else.
Based on what? The article stated the housing dept is involved. So where are you getting this information from?
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as described, it doesn’t seem as bad as the title
but we all know the reality will not be as it is described
Dude’s really method acting his trump “parody” isn’t he.
Maybe he can send trans people to gulags too. After all, Newsom’s message seems to be “Hey, I heard you like fascists… vote for me! I can do a fascism too!”
Experience has shown that trying to out-fascist the fascists always works really well for centrists. Anything but the compassionate, progressive politics people desperately want.
Trump has started going after the homeless. I can see Newsome taking action to keep Trump from declaring it an issue in California and sending in the National Guard and or the military. This may be a preemptive measure to address some radical moves by the current federal administration.
Trump has started going after the homeless. I can see Newsome taking action to keep Trump from declaring it an issue in California and sending in the National Guard and or the military.
He was going after the homeless before trump took office.
But but but maybe it was just a preemptive strike?!? 😬
Yeah definitely wouldn’t want the marines and national guard going to California. Is this sarcasm?
Here’s hoping that AOC or some other progressive wins the white house. Newsom, while better than Trump, is still shit.
As for Cali, I am hoping for Katie Porter or likeminded folk to take leadership when Newsom vacates his office. The homeless and everybody else needs help from someone who genuinely gives a damn.
Again with the zombie myth that Katie Porter is a progressive. She is even worse than Newsom.
Would bet cash money the DNC selects- I mean uh he fairly wins the DNC primary for next election cycle lol.
As though he hasn’t already been selected.
he had so little influence after his sf mayorship, he tried to get elected a couple times statewide, but hes just not good overall. plus he doesnt really capture people outside of montery or rich people anyways.
Bluemaga won’t care. We told yall this is who he is. Immiserating the homeless is what he does for fun.
… by making affordable housing and giving it to the needy?
Did you read the article beyond the headline? Is that what it said?
Yup, just making fun of the click bait, referencing the Anakin padme meme
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You have had conversations with many unhoused people and they’ve indicated they would much rather prefer sleeping in places with little security, a high risk of their few possessions being stolen, and little protection from the elements, to a safe, stable place of residence?
I’m quite skeptical.
I’ve been homeless. This person is either full of shit or the population they were around was drastically different than mine.
There are circumstances I recall where people turned down shelter space, opting to sleep on the streets, but that’s because the shelters imposed conditions that were unacceptable to them. Primarily, it was drug addicts refusing to get clean or shelters that imposed religious requirements. The rest was mostly untreated mental illness.
probably nimby person. the last thing Nimby neighborhoods want is low-income housing being built near them. thats what NEWSOM caters to.
“but that’s because the shelters imposed conditions that were unacceptable to them.”
There are people for whom conditions are not acceptable. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have access to a safe place to live.
Not what I said
I’m curious then, you seem to know the thoughts and experience of unhoused people, yet you’re saying you haven’t conversed with them. How did you form such an opinion?
My comments have been removed for some reason but I started the first one with “I can’t speak for all unhoused people but there are some.”
Not sure how you could read that as me speaking for all homeless people. I’ve lived in all kinds of situations with all kinds of people. I’ve known some who flat out reject being involved in programs designed to help them, preferring to go it alone. Yes, giving up access to safe shelters and other resources. I’m not saying they deserve to go without help or that they should be rounded up and placed in camps. I’m saying understanding their choices can be complex and requires more than just access to shelters or housing.
Your initial comment read like, “we shouldn’t provide access to housing for anyone because some don’t actually want it.”
I believe a better solution would be, “we should provide access to housing and if some don’t want it, they won’t be forced to use it.”
It’s definitely a complex issue, but the first step should be compassion and not eliminating practical options because they might not suit a small subset of the population.
You might have read my comment that way but you also read it as me speaking for all homeless people for some reason.
There is a risk of using already limited funds for housing projects that pay out to contractors/land developers (profiting off social programs) without having enough to go towards other issues facing unhoused people. The solution is more complex than simply “build more homes” which is what the original message I responded to was intimating.
All people deserve safe, stable living environments, some just choose to forgo those for reasons people seem unwilling to acknowledge.
I think you are conflating chronic homeless (less than 25% of all homeless) with people who are homeless for the first time, or have gone in and out of homelessness one or two times. The transiently homeless are absolutely driven there by lack of housing. Chronically homeless tend to have multiple issues that make serving them a challenge, but targeted support programs have been shown to make significant inroads even there.
This page has a lot of detailed breakdowns: https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/
“Chronically homeless tend to have multiple issues that make serving them a challenge, but targeted support programs have been shown to make significant inroads even there.”
That was the point I was making. It’s not just lack of housing.
I think you’re buying republican narrative about the homeless. That is judgement, but so is your comment.
Edit: No judgement
i dont think that word means what you think it means
Lol, I get the impression you don’t know what it means.
no shit? you think we have different ideas of what judgement means? what gave you that impression- was it the 1/9 ratio or me telling you so first?
shove your thoughtless reply right straight back up whatever hole you were gonna shit it out of. i’ve already blocked you.
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sounds like propaganda, even housing chronically homeless people, or people who druggies, have a very beneficial effect in an area. even if it doesnt immediately solve thier problems.
And where do you plan to have them go? Because they have to go somewhere. Perhaps instead of fighting a symptom you treat the cause. Like a complete lack of affordable housing. And things like corporations and hedge funds hoarding single family homes that sit empty, often not even on the market because they’re treating them as appreciating assets not homes.
In order to actually address the homeless crisis, we would first have to fix U.S. Healthcare.
Or we could leave everything broken, with the wealth still being transferred upwards, and keep funneling the people that have been ground up and spit out into our growing for-profit prison industry…
I live in Canada, we have universal healthcare and we still have a huge homelessness problem. Its because everything is so fucking expensive now and there is pretty much zero support for mentally ill people or drug addicts. I live in a relatively small town and we even have a few homeless camps around. The police will raid them and make them move all their shit out every once in a while, but then they just come back again, they have nowhere to go
Also not disagreeing that the US needs to fix it’s healthcare
The fix is multifaceted I feel, everything you said is spot on for the issues.
I feel a fix requires Universal Basic Income and Housing, along with mental health support. A minimum level of support would at least help a lot of these people to be able to get off the ground or at least live with a modicum of dignity.
Universal Healthcare would help at least with health issues that people out on the streets face.
Create a national jobs force/program, like the old Civilian Conservation Corps. Which can be organized and deployed to various US infrastructure projects, like building high speed rail. Offer some universal basic income along with their jobs. And offer housing as well.
I agree, having that and high taxes on the wealthy were part of the reason the US had such high levels of prosperity for the average citizen back in the olden days. The whole country should be getting connected via high speed rails, I feel. It would open up jobs for people living in more rural areas as well.
2 seperate things. housing would have immediate benefit than, something like healthcare reform. not to mention all the laws around rent control, zoning laws and nimbys.
Just housing them is really damn effective in my experience. They recently opened a pallet shelter “village” in my area. Since, I basically never see encampments, and the number of visibly unhoused folks has dropped a lot (since they just look like everybody else due to regular access to hygiene facilities). According to the cops, they’ve had zero calls out to the village.
We should still do all the other things, but just put up a ton of free basic housing and you can make enormous visual progress.
In order to actually address the homeless crisis, we would first have to fix U.S. Healthcare.
It’s too bad that neither party is interested in doing so.
someone should pose that question to the red states that literally ship their homeless to california and then call CA a shithole for having a homelessness problem.
Texas has actually started reforming zoning laws to allow for more housing, as much of a shithole as that state can be otherwise
Housing is an area that California has absolutely failed on, and it doesn’t look like Newsome will do anything to fix it
Reform zoning laws. Allow more dense housing to be built. Once housing is fixed, homelessness will follow suit
The vast majority of Californian homeless people become homeless in California. Some people do come here from out of state, but it’s around 10% of the total homeless population. 75% of homeless Californians even live in the same county they became homeless in.
California doesn’t have a ton of homeless people because everyone else is bussing homeless people here, it’s because it’s expensive as fuck (both rent and home prices).
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I… literally linked to it. The article is about the study those numbers come from.
I loved that they let a ton of people out of jail when they legalized marijuana and vacated a ton of convictions.
But then they literally just turned people out on the street with zero fucking pathways. No money, no home, no phone, just zero fucking resources.
It was an almost overnight explosion of homelessness in San Diego.
Sure they have always had a homeless population (the weather is particularly ideal for living outside most of the year), but nothing like it turned in to.
Clearing camps won’t help. Like you said, you need to solve the root problem.
they Did that in sf, during the ASEAN conference in '23, and they came RIGHT back immediately. Its just PR for newsom. once newsome"im making fun of trump" news dies down, he will probably going back to not caring.
A large amount of destitution is caused by people being bankrupted by medical bills.
The other big causes are untreated mental illness and addiction.
And a lot of addiction is caused by underlying mental illness.
The root cause of almost all these problems is healthcare.
And unaffordable housing, unfair wages, lack of worker rights,lack of opportunity, prohibitively expensive education, racism and sexism in the union trades, debt based everything, cost of living hikes and living in a dystopia in general
There are quite a lot of unhoused people who would rather remain homeless. From the conversations I’ve had, it’s not always just circumstances beyond their control. Some have had negative experiences with shelters or social services, and many feel more freedom living outside the system than being tied to its rules and restrictions. It’s not the case for everyone, but for some, homelessness is a conscious choice rather than only the result of hardship.
i heard about that, surprise people dont discuss it more. some willingly are homeless, because wouldnt need to pay rent, or taxes, and if they get sick, they can just go to the hospital and not get charged for it.
“If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!” --Newsom, probably
i think nimbyism is more a problem in california, than the other 2 things. I remember a nimby group(white people) threw a huge fit over in norcal like 1-2 years ago. of a building/center being built. and then its zoning laws.
Jesus fuckin Christ. Fuck you, you goddam scumbag.
And You. You definitely didn’t read the article. Just the title.
I just didn’t read it with the same unjustified credulity which you did.
Based on what exactly? Your feefees? Look at you using descriptive words beyond rage baiting titles on other people and yet somehow you’re above it? I smell bullshit.
Look, asshole, based on my experience living in California. Based on my ability to read newspapers with a critical eye. “Oh, well yes they are going to use police to sweep homeless encampments, but don’t worry, it will be paired with housing and supportive services!” Do you know how long it takes to build the kind of infrastructure that second part requires? Newsom can’t simply snap housing and rehab slots into existence, but he can snap police raids into existence, so that’s what he’ll do.
Besides overhauling the economy to better suit everyone, which Newsom has little control over, what other policies and tactics would you like to see used instead?
How about don’t crow about abusing the most disadvantaged people in our communities, while pretending you’re solving anything?
Certainly you just have more to say on this. There’s quite a history of California combating homelessness. What programs and tradeoffs have you seen that you prefer? There is diversity within the homeless community. How did you like to see the different groups managed?
Encampment sweeps kill.
https://www.propublica.org/article/portland-homeless-deaths-multnomah-county
But although the city spent roughly $200,000 per homeless resident throughout that time, deaths of homeless people recorded in the county quadrupled, climbing from 113 in 2019 to more than 450 in 2023, according to the most recent data from the Multnomah County Health Department. The rise in deaths far outpaces the growth in the homeless population, which was recorded at 6,300 by a 2023 county census, a number most agree is an undercount…
These deaths came during the same period that Portland began a two-pronged response to public pressure over homelessness. City leaders began moving homeless people out of public view by removing tents at a rate far surpassing those of its West Coast peers. Since 2021, it carried out 19,000 sweeps, and it dismantled over 20 encampments per day in 2024, according to city records.
At the same time, the city reduced money for stable permanent housing while dramatically increasing its investment in temporary shelters…
How is a city spending $200k per homeless resident and still not providing them with housing?
That’s more than 8 years’ worth of rent/mortgage at $2k per month. And even longer in a more reasonably-priced home.
I understand there are more expenses than just rent, but I also understand that it’s nearly impossible to get a job if you don’t have a permanent residence. If we’ve got a homelessness crisis that includes working families, why wouldn’t the states want to help those families?
A rent/mortgage assistance program seems like it would do a lot more long-term good than simply “cleaning up” encampments.
nimbyism, probably preventing them from building affordable housing.
They know. It’s the actual goal, not an unfortunate fluke of the system.
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200M spent on alligator Auschwitz and an estimated 450M annual operating cost.
Some googling tells me that an apartment building can cost about 200k/unit (I suspect it could be less). That’s 1000 units. And then imagine what would happen if you put that yearly operating cost into healthcare and other social programs.
They want to build 1000 concentration camps. Florida is working on their second. Texas has one. Other states will certainly follow.
Maybe Newsom should be building homes instead of division.
Depending on quality you can make studio apartments, similar to hotel rooms, for close to $50k per unit.
they are already closing the concentration camp, due to how poorly managed its run.
The vice signaling at the Fed level such as the “alligator” compound, and the “encampments bother my snowflake sensibility, just move them” shit being done in D.C. is not a carbon copy of whatever California is doing. Success at their self-stated goals is TBD, but the California government is putting actual resources to attempt to provide appealing options to those being displaced.
From the linked article, bolding mine:
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the creation of a statewide task force aimed at dismantling homeless encampments on state property and expanding access to shelter and services.
The State Action for Facilitation on Encampments, or SAFE Task Force, will coordinate efforts across multiple state agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, Caltrans, and the state’s health and housing departments.
The governor’s office stated that the task force will prioritize sites deemed unsafe and collaborate with local governments to connect individuals with shelter, health care and substance use services.
California spends over $50k per homeless person per year.
How has homelessness only grown?
Because of double dipping and lack of oversight.
One homeless person goes and gets welfare from one place and then another day goes elsewhere. Both places claim them for a period even though they may only actually be going to one place a day.
If California actually wanted to end homelessness, they could, but then the NGOs and administrators couldn’t profit off homelessness.
California is performative in altruisms and they will never accomplish anything of value on progressive values if they can’t use it to give money to wealthy people.
I don’t suppose you have data for that?
Fuck Gavin Newsom. The dude is scum. All the people blowing him are the worst
Where did all the newsom stans go?
EDIT: the number of downvotes is the number of people who agree with performative cruelty to homeless people.
The DNC hasn’t run it’s bots up yet today /j
nobody likes Newsome, but in contrast to the rest of the Dems… he’s actually effective at getting under the GOPs skin. That’s the whole thing.
GOP doesn’t give a shit about Jefferies yapping on the floor for hours. They don’t care about another “strongly worded letter” from Schumer. And everyone, EVERYONE, hates Pelosi…
Yes, we all want more people like Mamdani. His policies are everything that I want, that most of us want. But you’d also have to be politically ignorant to not realize that his platform is on shakey ground nationwide. You can do something like Mamdani in a blue stronghold like NY. But across the nation? At this moment in time? No chance, you might as well just hand GOP the keys to power ad infinitium.
I don’t like Newsome, but I’m not trying to throw the whole country in the toilet waiting for the world to come around to Mamdani. Playing this “all or nothing” game is getting real people killed and lives ruined.
if Progressives are supposed to vote blue no matter who, then Centrists can too. If someone like Mamdani beats Newsom in the 2028 primary they can suck it up and vote for him.
I’ve swallowed loads the past three elections, it’s their turn to take one for the team.
“blue no matter who” has always been a cudgel used by “party unity my ass” types.
if Progressives are supposed to vote blue no matter who, then Centrists can too. If someone like Mamdani beats Newsom in the 2028 primary they can suck it up and vote for him.
They should. But like the many left-abstainers in 2024, it remains to be seen if they will.
If someone like Mamdani runs in the 2028 primary (Mamdani himself being sadly ineligible), they will have my general and primary vote. God forbid a shithead neolib like Newsom gets through.
But ‘Blue No Matter Who’ is an expression of desperation against the fascists in the GOP, not a magic formula, as much as we wish it was.
nobody likes Newsome, but
followed by 4 paragraphs of “you are going to vote newsom and love it”
If no one likes him, he’s not gonna win. But let’s face it. Winning isn’t the point. Making sure no progressive is able to run is the point. And you’ll campaign for someone you claim to hate in order to make sure that happens.
As long as cynicism is the logic for choosing candidates, we are never going to see real leaders at the helm of the party. But yeah, let’s continue to not have faith voters can do better because the alternative sounds exhausting.
Something I don’t think a lot of people realize is that Lincoln was a pretty shitty dude. Modern leftists would crucify him. He had a pretty shitty opinion on civil rights and only put an end to slavery so the fighting would end.
You’re seriously comparing newsom to Lincoln?
So what if I am? Do you actually know much about Lincoln, or just the simplified version they fed you in 3rd grade? I’m not saying Newsom is Lincoln or that this means he should be president, that’s not the point. The point is that even someone widely regarded as one of the “best” presidents is remembered mostly for a single policy, and even that didn’t go far enough on civil rights.
The point is that even someone widely regarded as one of the “best” presidents is remembered mostly for a single policy, and even that didn’t go far enough on civil rights.
Sounds to me like you’re saying that anything newsom does that was acceptable in the 1860s is perfectly fine.
You’re almost there, I’m saying he’s straight out of the 1860s
Is this the part where you tell us he’s a corpo shill and I should vote third party in protest?
Can always count on centrists to conflate criticism and disloyalty in the worst faith possible.
This sounds an awful lot like Louisiana…
Relocation begins: Jeff Landry’s administration clears New Orleans homeless encampments
Louisiana coerced unhoused people into an unheated warehouse – and paid $17.5m for it
It started out as needing to clear everyone out allegedly for security reasons bc of the Bourbon street attacks and the Superbowl, but everyone assumed he was trying to just slap a coat of paint on the city. Then it happened again when there was a big Taylor Swift concert, now it’s like every time “we have company” we should just understand Landry will be rounding up homeless people to make the city more presentable.
People keep saying Newsome is just doing this kind of shit to prove he’s a centrist Democrat but I’m kinda starting to worry it might be a little more sinister than that.
Word of advice for California, be very cautious about allowing any state police or task force to permanently or semi permanently set up in your cities. If it gets proposed push back as loud and hard as you legally can, no matter what you local government might indicate about it.
Homeless sweep ahead of Taylor Swift concert reveals conflict between city, Troop NOLA
Troop NOLA: What we know about the new Louisiana State Police troop in New Orleans
Mayor LaToya Cantrell ‘in alignment’ with Gov. Jeff Landry’s crime plan for New Orleans
And if you can’t stop it from happening make sure your city hammers out even the most obscure details in a contract. If you’re not sure if you need to bother with getting it in writing, you do.
I changed the original headline bc it’s misleading. It makes it sound like the contract was something city council wanted bc they wanted homeless sweeps. The city pushed for a formal contract bc State police were just doing it without any say from the city on how they rounded people up or where they took them.
I wish they said how long people lived there before becoming homeless.
Ninety percent of participants became homeless in California, having been last housed in the state.
This means someone could have moved there there and been housed for a period of time before not being able to make ends meet.
There’s also this at the end though…
Two-thirds (66%) were born in California.
So it seems it’s still a mostly local issue.
While many people believe that substance use, mental illness, or other individual factors are the main drivers of homelessness, extensive research shows that rising housing costs drive more people into homelessness than any other cause.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/we-can-end-homelessness-in-america
I’m in Canada, Toronto specifically and the Homeless situation here is just as bad as it is in the US. I do volunteer work for a couple homeless outreach programs and I’d say easily since the pandemic the homeless demographic has drastically changed.
The stereotype that homeless people are junkies or mentally ill has shattered. The people I’m working with now are, for now, mentally fit and sober. More women than ever, more elderly, more minorities that in the past generally didn’t have many homeless within them because their communities would help prevent them from being homeless i.e. Asians, Muslims, etc
So. Many. Have jobs. So many have families, children, and they are sleeping rough so that they can simply afford to have their kids or older parents or other family members continue to live with whatever roof they can afford over their heads. There are SO many that are sleeping rough because there is simply no room for them to sleep in the tiny studio apartment they can barely afford with their kids, wives, parents, whatever.
I’m handing out food to people who dont’ even look homeless. They can’t afford to BUY FOOD. All their money goes to rent or other important bills. I’m dealing with people who were on drugs and alchol who then got sober in hopes to get off the streets and find work only to relapse because there is no work or what work they can get isn’t anywhere near enough to get them off the streets so they slump RIGHT BACK into that hole because, and they’ve told me first hand, “There’s no point.”
Lines are getting longer every month, The portions for food and other things we hand out are getting smaller because NO ONE can afford to donate ANYTHING anymore anywhere near the amount we need to cover the increasingly rising population we’re working with.
And none of the politicians could give a flying fuck. None of them. Regardless of what side of the fence they’re on and how far away from said fence they are. We could have fixed this years ago, decades ago, but we chose profits over people. We made this bed a long time ago, It’s almost your turn to get into it.
For us volunteers this is no longer a battle we’re fighting in hopes of winning. No, at this point we’ve lost. Now we’re just hoping we have enough bandages to slow the bleeding as much as possible before we run out.
And none of the politicians could give a flying fuck. None of them.
They like it this way.
Even if the reasons where mainly substance use and mental illness, those are still societal issues that require societal solutions through better health care access and overall more social security.
It is wild to me that in America “Oh you have a mental illness? Well go die then and don’t leave your corpse for me to see!” is somehow a position that is considered acceptable among “progressives”. It is deeply reactionary and a hallmark of fascists.
Housing needs to be a right.
