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Newsom awards millions to help Central Coast homeless move into housing

June 18, 2023

By KAREN VELIE

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday plans to provide Central Coast communities with more than $27 million to help people move out of homeless encampments and into housing.

In this latest round of funding to combat homelessness, Newsom said he will provide San Luis Obispo County with $13.4 million “to serve 200 people from an encampment in a flood and fire danger zone.” The goal is to move the people out of the encampment and into housing at a cost of $67,000 per person.

For Santa Barbara County, the state is allotting $6 million to serve 250 people from encampments along state rights of way and waterways. In this case, the state is allotting $24,000 per person assisted.

Newsom is providing Monterey County with $8 million to serve 70 people from an encampment along a river and creek at a cost of $114,285 per person.

The latest $199 million for 23 projects in 22 communities is the third, and largest, round of funding to go toward encampment cleanups and homelessness.


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After reading some of the more recent comments, I get the feeling that most of those who are responding negatively to the idea of housing for the homeless have not checked the more recent developments. I am aware that there are those who do not want help and will be more problematic to deal with than simply giving them a home if they do not want one. That is another matter. Those will not be the first to be helped, obviously. But there are now many who deserve to be given some kind of break and will take full advantage of the opportunity to get back on their feet and lead healthier, happier, less chaotic lives.


Shouldn’t this be done first, before the more draconian measures are taken? Shouldn’t this situation be addressed now, before property values escalate even further? Institutionalizing people is far more expensive that the proposed budget to create viable housing now. For those who would benefit now. The longer people remain homeless, the more likely they are to slide downhill into substance abuse, even if this was not the original cause of their predicament. It just makes good sense to address this sooner than later.


Or is this just another opportunity to bash the “lib” government for whatever they propose? Damned if they do, damned if they don’t? I have seen zero alternative suggestions that make any sense at all.


-7

Apparently, many of the commentors have not noticed what has happened to the rents in this county. Or anywhere, for that matter. Owners who have purchased for “investment” have seen their way clear to displace anyone who cannot pay the exorbitant new “market value” and people are ending up in their cars or on the street. Including many families. Owners see it as their “right” to get that investment paid off ASAP and move on to more property whilst more people end up unable to afford a decent place to raise their families or even care for themselves on the amount they can make. Many of the displaced are also disabled and cannot work. Many were put there by out-of-control medical bills. Often both.


I think the true burden of this mess should fall on those geniuses who voted against a very mild form of rent control that would have protected many of these people from homelessness. People were told, by those who preferred to continually exploit the public, that voting for rent control would “hurt veterans”. Seriously??? To whom were they referring? The ones in the tents and cardboard boxes? Those who used this excuse to block protections are the same ones who mouth “Thank you for your service” with great regularity. But if you are one of them, at least be cheered up by the fact that you made the real-estate industry and those property owners who seek to seek to exploit the public very pleased.


Perhaps those voters thought they were really “owning the libs” or “upholding property rights” by voting against protecting the public and the vulnerable and those on fixed incomes from exploitation, but at least have the courtesy not to further demean those who are victims of your policy decisions by insisting that they “don’t want help” or that they are in that horrible circumstance because they are “lazy”.


That kind of clueless callousness is neither civil nor acceptable behavior. It says far more about you than those who are left without a roof over their heads.


-25

i think it has a little more to do with meth then with rent.


9

Unless one has actually worked with the homeless, they obviously have no clue. I have friends who are in social services and if one who makes such cruel, clueless, blanket statements, they would be shamed to their core (if they were capable of that level of self-awareness) were they to get the actual story of who the homeless now comprise. Anyone who simply sits at home and makes such anonymous judgements, based on what they “think” rather than on what they actually know, possibly because it makes them feel better about themselves, needs to get a life.


There are hard working families with innocent children who are now having to rely on social services to exist. It is humiliating, and almost impossible to overcome when so many people are as completely oblivious as they seem to be over how their policy choices are affecting others. It does our society no favors to create such situations. But I guess you feel secure about your future.


It also appears some of the commentors also slept thru English class.


-9

Stop bloated gov jobs and build houses and public hospitals!


24

Cal polys new 77million dollar library? And I’m so outraged by those impoverished classes!


-16

Such negativity from these comments.. not surprising. He’s trying to help these p


-65

He’s trying to help these people. Can’t we just be glad money is coming in to make their lives better.


-58

Newsflash….

The majority of them do not help,they want to live out in the open,no rent,no mortgage,no bills,move their camps and their gear as they please and demand services,which they do not want to adhere to the rules.

Help the ones who are willing to do the steps to get housed and tell the rest to move on.

You can’t change people who do not want to change.

So why waste the money and try.


67

Attempting a civil discussion, but will likely get downvoted.


It is a broad categorization, but I think there are 3 types of homeless. The mentally ill, the addicts, and the people in unfortunate situations as described by some getting downvoted in the comments.


You are right, that many do not want to be helped, and want to live their ‘hobo’ lives. And I agree we should not throw money at them. (Although the ones willing to get on meds or attempt to get clean, should be helped.).


The ones that do not want help are the more visible ones, and the problematic ones, and unfortunately the others get lumped in with them.


Its not unlike what some liberals do, where they see and hear the very extreme right and start assuming any Republican’s views are the same. The right make the same mistake with the left.


There is not an easy answer. Are you going to throw them in prison? This would essentially be like the debtor prisons of old, would cost more than what is being proposed, and would just make the prison corporations rich. Do you do nothing, then complain about the RVs and cars by the Ocean? I don’t know the details of how the money is being spent. Hopefully, they are not just ‘throwing money at it’. But something must be done to try and help the unfortunate.


2

I do not lump the ones who are truly trying to get themselves out their predicament,they’re taking the steps,following rules of a program that is trying to help them.You can tell by looking or talking with them who’s willing to do what they need to do to better themselves.

Laughlines first comment hits the nail on head and is so correct it’s time to take to take stronger steps to correct the problem that’s gotten out if hand.

I still stand by you can’t change people who don’t want to change and why waste the money?


1

Are you working directly with the homeless? Is your church? Are some of your friends doing aid work directly with some of the families? I am willing to guess not. I am not the least impressed by bullying comments that lump everyone together as if they were all the most difficult cases and then act like experts, when they have no actual experience or even second-hand professional knowledge. The amounts proposed to create housing are actually modest in comparison to where you probably live. And a lot cheaper than allowing them to continue to live in a camp and create a continuous health and safety hazard, as opposed to helping them back into society and seeing that their children are fed and get to school to become productive members of society. People should look at the big picture, rather than listening to the most negative of narratives coming from someone with no actual experience of the factors involved.


0

Again I am not lumping anyone together or bullying,I just believe you cannot change people who do not want to change,if they would at least try we most likely would not have the huge issue like we do.

The amount of money that they are going to spend per person is more than I have ever made and I do not own a house.

Wait until you wake up some morning and have a person high on meth at your gate and when asked to leave does so but leaves some smoldering newspapers on the road on his way back to the highway 1 or another one trying my neighbors sede doors in broad daylight to get in,did he need a cup of sugar? I don’t think so.

So everyone will have an opinion negative or positive.

I hope that they help the ones that will take the steps to get housed and not have the money go up in smoke


3

Just remember that the money came from somebody else and there is a limited supply.


15

Good now get them off the street and out from under our bushes… I bet we see no difference come from this….


56

Paid for by the hard working middle class. California taxes keep increasing while the deficit balloons even more. I guess it’s one way to make up for the exodus.


If you build it, they will come.


55

How about we tax the BILLIONAIRES? The “libs”, who vote for assistance for the most vulnerable are not the ones opposing a fair tax system. Not the ones taxing the middle class. And as for the “they will come”? They were already here. It is our own citizens, for the most part, who are being priced out of their own communities by the lack of any kind of rent control.


-14

Unbelievable !! he has to be preparing to run for Pres with all this give away money. How about giving some to everyone of the hardworking people who has seen their gas,electric and every other necessary item skyrocket plus the people who live in the country areas can’t even get someone to insure their home and if they are lucky to find someone it’s about $6000 a yr. $67,000 for one person in SLO is for what? Most of the WORKING FAMILIES probably don’t make that a yr. A lot of the homeless like how things are for them now You can lead a horse to water and it decides if it wants to drink or not. Newsom has destroyed Ca and won’t stop until it’s buried in debt like the Federal Government is


53

Yep, let’s bring in the Republicans?!? Last time we had a Republican governor California was $91 billion in debt. And the last Republican president added $7.8 trillion to the national debt—nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. debt since 1789.


-47

Didn’t mention Republican anybody that puts the people first is fine,did the Republican governor inherit that 91 Billion debt? How much are we still in debt Dems in power for awhile, I agree both political sides have no idea how to spend our money and balance the budget but the same people repub or Dem that do this keep getting voted in so who’s fault is it really


13

No, that Republican created that debt. Although his party incessantly harps on their so-called fiscal responsibility, for several changes in Washington, it has been the Dems who paid down the debt and the Republicans who again run it past all historic levels. They do that by cutting taxes to the already obscenely wealthy. They also cut social services, which tends to then allow much more expensive situations to evolve.


But the real money suck is corporate welfare. The average taxpayer is footing the bill for social services to the tune of about $34 per year, whilst their contributions to corporate interests can number in the tens of thousands of dollars.


The current, so-called “right wing” is dead set against taxing those who are accumulating all our financial resources at the top of the chain and leaving the rest to scramble to survive – or not. Every time anyone runs for office with a history of actually serving the public, they are instantly labeled “socialist” or “communist” by people who don’t usually even understand the definition of those terms and the status quo continues.


-11

Excellent comment. Until we raise the top tax rate back to where it was between 1933 and 1981, we will be consistently in debt and scrambling to provide a safety net for our most vulnerable Americans.


-4

I agree with your first sentence. In the last six years, that has clearly been the Dems. The Republicans are too busy agreeing with any charade proposed by Donald Trump.


To be fair, Schwarzenegger inherited a $20+ billion deficit in 2002—much of that accrued because the state was screwed by Enron, a Texas gas company whose leaders eventually went to jail.


For the last 14 years, the Dems have indeed done a good job of spending our money and balancing the budget. Most economic analysts have lauded both Newsom and his predecessor Jerry Brown for consistently providing a balanced budget on an economy that is among the five largest in the world.


The current deficit is a product of two things—inflation and the fact that California has delayed tax filings this year until October. I expect when things are said and done, the deficit will not be as large as currently reported.


We definitely have money to help the homeless, I’m just not sure the majority of them want to be helped. In Las Vegas, they have about 1,500 people basically living underground in the city’s storm drains. Those “mole people” have their own rules and lifestyles. Many of them apparently choose to live that way.


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