Announcement follows Newsom’s May budget revision, which includes $1 billion to fight California’s homelessness crisis

Governor Gavin Newsom, in a visit to Oakland this week,  announced he will implement real  solutions to homelessness, saying he will put an end to the lip service that has allowed California to become the state with the highest percentage of homeless people in the country.

“The state of California has never had a homeless plan…California has been nowhere to be found on the issue of homelessness, nowhere,”  said  Gov. Newsom. “We got work to do. This is a national disgrace.”

After touring the Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center, a successful transitional homeless center in Oakland, Newsom said he is creating a task force that will identify programs that are working in other  places and will use $1 billion that is already in the governor’s May budget revision for implementing those solutions.

According to new numbers released last week, homelessness in Alameda County has grown by 43 percent over the past two years. This year, a total of 8,022 people were sleeping outdoors or in shelters in January, up from the 5,629 in the 2017 count. Local advocates for the homeless say these official statistics greatly understate the magnitude of the problem.

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