Front Page  »  

Newsom wants California cities to ban homeless encampments

May 12, 2025

Gov. Gavin Newsom

By KAREN VELIE

California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently provided a template for an ordinance for cities and counties to adopt to help local officials put an end to the many homeless encampments that have proliferated throughout the state.

Newsom directed the California Interagency Council on Homelessness to create guidance and a sample ordinance for local governments to follow in creating and implementing homeless camping rules. Since July 2021, the state has cleared more than 16,000 encampments from sites along the state right of way.

“This model ordinance is intended to provide a starting point that jurisdictions may build from and adjust in creating their own policies,” according to Newsom’s announcement. “These results demonstrate that the policy is both effective and scalable, offering a sound, adoptable framework for jurisdictions to resolve encampments with urgency and dignity.”

All ordinance need to include three basic principles, according to Newsom:

  • No criminal prosecution for sleeping outside if there is no where to go.
  • Encampment policies must prioritize shelter and services and ensure that unhoused people and their belongings are treated with respect.
  • Ordinances must not unduly limit local authority to clear encampments.

“There is no compassion in abandoning Californians to the dangers and indignities of encampments,” according to Newsom’s announcement. “Encampments pose a serious public safety risk, often causing fires and exposing encampment residents to increased risk of sexual violence and criminal activity, to property damage and break-ins, and unsanitary conditions affecting both residents and neighbors.”

 


Loading...
Subjects:         
Related:


26 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

This is a typical Newsom ploy…. and as always, will fail. Like any progressive… they create a problem and then pretend to come to the rescue (with our money). What a putz.


19

Let’s not forget Newsom made it legal to camp on state highway right of ways. Now he’s Taken all the cash he needed and is kicking the homeless to the curb.


14

Using California’s own published numbers, we have spent $128,284 per homeless person over the last 5 years….. there is an unbelievable amount of fraud in the food chain here.


31

I’d rather have my tax dollars go towards addressing the homeless issue than paying over $30 million (to date) for one man to play golf at Mar-a-lago. You want to look at fraud, then start taking a look at THAT.


-28

Desert tent camps. Away from drug sources. Treatment, Clean up, dry out. If you return to streets, you come back until you learn not to be homeless.


19

6 years too late… just think about all the death… carnage and environmental damage that has taken place as he did nothing for all the years he has served…

Don’t expect an applause Newsom….


56

Do you remember that during his first campaign he said he would stop the failed high speed rail project, then right after being elected he said we cant stop it? He will say whatever he thinks he needs to say to get what he wants. He is a pathological liar and will never stop.


69

While I am not a fan, I understand that Governor Newsom is coming to the end of his term. However, he chose a career an elected official and while, to date, he has always stated policies and purpose that align with the left and which are consistent with his democratic background, the best thing for him now is to drive toward the middle as he can no longer be CA’s elected governor. Perhaps this new push is just a political ploy, or perhaps it is more aligned with his actual political positioning. While we may never know, he (and we) are aware that he will never be elected as President if he doesn’t have the support of at least some people on the right. So it makes sense for him to drift to the middle.


First, he suddenly offers that it is unfair to cis-gendered girls to compete against their trans-gendered counterparts. He then offers that cities and counties must have resources to counteract homeless encampments. Keep in mind that his proposed ordinance relates to encampments – not homelessness. Candidly his rationale here is as centric as it could possibly be: No more encampments, but no criminal charges for merely being homeless if there is no place for them to go.

What we are seeing is his trending toward the middle – to some degree embracing opportunities that contradict his prior positions and policies.


That said, while some of the comments indicate “Too Little, Too Late” or other iterations of the same, I raise the question: “Is it?”


-6

Six comments, all just trashing Newsom. Not one single workable suggestion put forward. Seems that the best he can do is right in line with your best as well. So, if you can’t come up with even one reasonable idea, why stick your nose in at all? Homelessness is a very real problem. There but for the grace of God goes most of us, really, with such few safety nets in our society. And God forbid we vote for anything as commie as RENT CONTROL here!


I tell you what, though. We send $83 BILLION per year to the federal government more than we get back every year. That goes to the “red states”, most of which need that welfare to keep afloat. Incidentals like medical care and education, etc. Like it or not. Perhaps you all who want to criticize Newsom should instead persuade those states to run themselves more like we do in Cali and then, perhaps, we could fix just about everything you have to complain about with the money we could keep.


Just sayin’……


-90

Simple! Stop making babies you can’t afford.


27

How many babies have you adopted? I’m sure you’re doing your part of the solution.


-20

Not to put words in your mouth, but you appear to believe the Governor and the Democratically controlled legislature are doing a good job managing this State? A simple yes or no, nothing to with Trump or MAGA. Just a yes or no.


38

How bout this, stop closing prisons, re-enact drug court, open more state mental health facilities, enforce laws that already exist, make it uncomfortable and incovient to be a homeless drug addict. Quit giving them money. Newsome has spent our state into oblivion and we can’t afford essential services for these people. We need a proactive governor. Years of this mess and a Newesome is spending huge amounts of the budget on illegals (sancuary state) when citizens are living in tents drug addicted and mentally ill.


59

You have it right Nebitsunt! And the $abuse is so thick! I want to see an accounting of the Billions the feds have provided to California over the past few years.. It seems the programs are still sitting in an “idea folder” somewhere, or have failed! Homelessness increases, as the wallets of those in charge do. Enough of the fraud! I heard a few years ago, much of the $ went to build “Low income” homes. But those homes were actually offered for sale to “Electricians” and “Plumbers”, those who could qualify for a loan, Not the “Homeless”, and not one penny ended up on Skid Row! I’ve heard in L. A. Skid Row has increased 80% since 2015, especially over the past few years. How is it with All this $ homelessness has increased? Time to hold our governor accountable, and return to what we know works.


0

It’s pretty simple to me, stop feeding the beast and it will die off or go away.


20
1 2