California mayors ask for $20B to mitigate homelessness crisis
Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln met with mayors of California’s Big City Mayors coalition to talk about the homeless crisis and a new funding opportunity Thursday morning.
The conversation focused on a potential $20 billion that the state could approve to further fund housing initiatives and reduce homelessness.
“The $20 billion funding allocations to our cities would help us take bold, actionable steps to mitigate homelessness,” Lincoln said.
More than 80% of Stockton residents view homelessness as a humanitarian crisis and 60% of the homeless population are experiencing behavioral health challenges related to mental health and substance abuse disorder, Lincoln said.
If the funds are approved, “it is imperative that our cities have access to increased levels of flexible funding from the state to adequately address the crisis through more positive initiatives,” the mayor added.
“This flexible funding allocation for homelessness would provide us with the opportunities to meet the immediate needs in our city,” he added. Where the money would come from San José Mayor Sam Liccardo opened the meeting mentioning budget proposals from both the California state Senate (Build Back Boldly, proposed mid-April) and Assembly (Budget of Opportunity, proposed April 28).
The Big City Mayors coalition presented a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislative leaders petitioning for $4 billion in funds a year to further act on homelessness that are committed for five years, totaling the discussed $20 billion.
“We stand together to say that we need to treat homelessness like the crisis that it is,” Liccardo said.
During the coalition’s meeting Thursday morning, mayors from the largest cities in California — San José, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Anaheim, Riverside, Santa Ana, Stockton and Oakland — shared their perspectives and aspirations that could be done if the $20 billion is approved in June.
The proposed funds are sourced from the $26 billion surplus California has from the American Rescue Plan. “California is in its strongest state and federal funding situation in budget history,” reads assemblymember and chair of the Budget Committee Phil Ting’s budget proposal presentation site.
However, the homelessness crisis in the state has kept growing over the years. “California accounted for more than half of all unsheltered people in the country,” at the start of 2020, reported the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
As the COVID-19 pandemic and household financial concerns spread across the state, the homelessness crisis became even more evident and an increasing concern for many.
“The need to expand wrap-around services, emergency shelter capacity, transitional and permanent housing opportunities has never been greater,” Lincoln said.
In the question-and-answers section of the mayors’ meeting, Liccardo took the helm on answering financial and distribution questions.
Funding formulas from the state have typically allocated dollars to counties, but “we now have direct allocation to the cities,” he said. “This will be a partnership between cities and counties working together.”
When it comes to distributing the $20 billion across the state, that “will be determined by the legislation and the governor,” Liccardo said. Allocation is typically formulated on the counts of the homeless and general populations, he added.
The money that may be allocated to Stockton “will be used to increase access and reduce barriers to homeless shelters and crisis response services,” Lincoln wrote in a statement to The Record.
“This includes expanding low-barrier shelter capacity, hours, and services, investing in homelessness prevention and diversion, and improving and expanding coordinated outreach and engagement,” he added.