Homelessness is Top of Mind for Many Californians. Why Does the Proposed Budget Eliminate Funding for It?

by Contributing Author

by Marisa Kendall, CalMatters

California’s main source of homelessness funding would drop from $1 billion last year to $0 this year in the proposed state budget.

State leaders have been talking a lot lately about cleaning up California’s homeless encampments and moving people indoors. But the tentative budget they’ve drawn up for the upcoming year has many asking: With what money?

Both Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature have proposed gutting the state’s main source of homelessness funding in the 2025-26 budget,

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Sober Living in Permanent Supportive Housing: How Exactly Does That Work?

by Contributing Author

by Jordan Wasilewski

In springtime of 2025, the conversation around sober and recovery housing continues from San Francisco to Sacramento. Matt Haney’s Assembly Bill 255 allows cities and counties to set aside up to 25% of state homelessness funds for sober living quarters. The set-aside is not required: It’s merely an ask for permission to allocate funding for up to 25% of permanent supportive housing units of funds for sober living,

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Despite Legislative Stalls, the “Right to Rest” Movement Shows No Signs of Resting

by Contributing Author

By Cathleen Williams, Sacramento Homeward Street Journal

Supporters of Senate Bill 634, which if passed would pre-empt ordinances in cities throughout California that criminalize survival activities related to homelessness. Courtesy of Cathleen Williams.

A state bill that would effectively prohibit punishment of homelessness, overriding California municipalities’ ordinances outlawing camping and other survival activities, was introduced in the state Senate on April 23. But most of the provisions protecting the rights of unhoused Californians did not survive its first committee hearing.

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“Look, There’s Nowhere Else to Go”: Inside California’s Crackdown on Homeless Camps

by Contributing Author
A tent is in the center of the frame. In front of it is what looks like a white dollhouse, laying flat on the ground. The image is in Black and White

by Marisa Kendall and Katie Anastas, CalMatters

It’s been eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed how cities in California and beyond can respond to homeless encampments, allowing them to clear camps and arrest people  for sleeping outside — even when there’s nowhere  else to sleep. 

The July ruling in the case Grants Pass v. Johnson upended six years of protections for unhoused people.

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Cash Ruled Everything Around Us This Election Season

by TJ Johnston

The 2024 election is likely to be recorded in history as the year of the billionaires. Their money has influenced this year’s ballot from presidential contests to state and local races. 

But even people with ten-figure net worth didn’t get everything they wanted. 

Daniel Lurie prevailed in San Francisco’s mayoral race. Lurie is an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, and spent over $8 million in his largely self-financed campaign.

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Wood Street Residents Trek on Bikes to Meet with State Lawmakers

by Contributing Author

 by Isidore Mika Székely Manes-Dragan

Image courtesy of Wood Street Commons via Instagram

For the third straight year, a group of former Wood Street encampment residents bicycled some 80 miles from Oakland to Sacramento in a show of solidarity with unhoused Californians.

In their annual caravan to the state capitol, the Wood Street Commons residents rode for three days in October to lobby their lawmakers.

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California pledged $500 million to help tenants preserve affordable housing. They didn’t get a dime.

by Contributing Author

by Felicia Mello/CalMatters

Luke Johnson and his neighbors thought they had found the perfect solution to avoid being displaced from their Silver Lake, Los Angeles fourplex: A state program was offering $500 million to help tenants, community land trusts and other affordable housing developers buy buildings at risk of foreclosure.

With their longtime landlords set on selling the building, Johnson and his neighbors persuaded them to sell to a community land trust that pledged to keep rents low.

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Stop Prop. 36, California’s Latest Prison-Industrial Scam

by Contributing Author

by Cathleen Williams, Homeward Street Journal

“With California dealing with such a serious housing crisis—actually I would say beyond a crisis, we are living through a housing disaster—the idea of re-introducing tens if not hundreds of thousands of felonies into families across California [through Prop. 36] will make that problem not only worse, but it will make it unimaginably worse. It’s not about fixing anything or making anyone safer. Instead,

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The Unseen Toll of Homeless Encampment Sweeps

by Contributing Author

by Hollie Garrett

I watched the correctional officers from the sliver of the cell door window as they strapped on their rubber gloves and set up their metal detectors in preparation of the mass search. I had known this would be coming for days, but that did not simmer the anxiety and stress I felt in my chest and stomach as I watched them prepare to shatter any sense of privacy I may have developed during my stay in this prison. 

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Why Don’t People Experiencing Street Homelessness Accept Shelter?

by Contributing Author

by Stop the Sweeps

We know one main thing: shelter is not being offered to most people being swept from street encampments in the US. There are hardly ever enough shelter spaces available.

According to a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in the case Martin v. Boise — a decision currently at risk of being struck down in the case Grants Pass v. Johnson — cities cannot legally sweep people if they are not able to offer every individual shelter.

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