After spending $27 billion on homelessness with nothing to show for it, Gavin Newsom suddenly wants to clear the encampments he helped create.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced a $3.3 billion plan to combat homelessness, focusing on clearing encampments and developing behavioral health housing. This comes after his administration has already spent a staggering $27 billion on homelessness programs with little improvement to show for it. The new initiative leans on a Supreme Court ruling to give local governments legal backing to clear public spaces, while Newsom threatens to withhold funding from cities that don’t comply with his demands. Meanwhile, the state continues to struggle with nearly 200,000 homeless individuals.
The Emperor of California Has No Clothes
Isn’t it just remarkable how politicians discover common sense right when their previous agendas implode? After years of enabling homelessness through soft-on-crime policies, drug tolerance, and failed housing initiatives, Governor Hair Gel has suddenly discovered that having tens of thousands of people living in squalor on sidewalks might be a problem. “It is time to take back the streets,” declares Newsom, as if he just arrived from another planet and didn’t help create this dystopian nightmare during his lengthy political career in California.
The $3.3 billion Newsom is throwing at the problem comes after already burning through $27 billion in taxpayer money. That’s BILLION with a B. I’m sure this time will be different though! Never mind that this astronomical sum could have built actual housing for every homeless person in the state several times over. Instead, it’s been funneled through a bureaucratic machine that seems designed to maintain homelessness rather than solve it.
The Convenient Timing of Newsom’s Epiphany
Isn’t it interesting how this sudden tough stance on encampments comes as Newsom continues to position himself for higher office? The governor who once championed “housing first” policies that did little but attract more homeless to California has apparently realized that having encampments everywhere isn’t great for his political image. California has become a national embarrassment, with streets that tourists and residents alike are afraid to walk down, and business owners are fleeing in droves.
“It’s time to take back the sidewalks. It’s time to take these encampments and provide alternatives and the state is giving you more resources than ever, and it’s time, I think, to just end the excuses.” – Gov. Gavin Newsom
End the excuses? That’s rich coming from the guy who’s been making excuses for years. Newsom has been governor since 2019, and the homeless population has exploded under his watch to 187,000 people statewide. His newfound urgency rings hollow when his administration has had years to address the crisis but instead pursued policies that worsened it. Now he’s threatening to withhold funding from cities that don’t comply with his new directive—the same funding that has accomplished next to nothing under his leadership.
The Constitutional Reality Check
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson has apparently given Newsom the legal cover he needed to reverse course on his permissive encampment policies. For years, leftist jurisdictions claimed the Constitution somehow guaranteed a right to pitch tents on public property. Now that the highest court in the land has confirmed what anyone with common sense already knew—that cities can indeed regulate their public spaces—Newsom is jumping on board like he invented the concept.
“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets,” Newsom said in the statement issued Monday.
Well, hallelujah! Someone give the man a cookie for this breakthrough realization. Conservatives have been saying this for decades while being labeled heartless for suggesting that allowing drug addiction, mental illness, and squalor to fester on the streets might not be the most compassionate approach. It’s astonishing how progressive politicians can implement disastrous policies, watch them fail spectacularly, then pivot 180 degrees and act like they’re bringing revolutionary solutions to the table.
The Broken Promise of “Housing First”
One of the most frustrating aspects of California’s homelessness crisis is the state’s dogmatic adherence to “housing first” policies that ignore the underlying causes of homelessness—mental illness and drug addiction. Newsom’s new $3.3 billion plan at least acknowledges this reality by allocating funds for behavioral health housing, but it comes after years of denying the obvious. The reality is that many homeless individuals need treatment before housing can be effective.
“The model ordinance provides local governments with clear guidelines while emphasizing outreach and services. This is a practical step forward in helping communities responsibly manage encampments and connect people to the support they need.” – L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger
A “practical step forward” after years of impractical steps backward. The crisis didn’t materialize overnight—it’s the predictable result of policies that decriminalized public camping, normalized open-air drug markets, and threw money at ineffective solutions. The average cost to build a single unit of homeless housing in Los Angeles has reached an absurd $600,000 per unit. At that rate, housing California’s homeless population would cost well over $100 billion—and that’s assuming the problem doesn’t continue to grow under the state’s failed policies.
The Bottom Line
Newsom’s belated acknowledgment that homeless encampments are destructive to communities is welcome, but let’s not pretend this represents some bold leadership. It’s a desperate attempt to address a catastrophe that his own policies helped create. California taxpayers have already funded $27 billion worth of failure, and now they’re being asked to trust that another $3.3 billion will somehow produce different results. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes.
Until California’s leadership acknowledges that their progressive approach to homelessness has been an unmitigated disaster and embraces proven solutions that address mental illness and addiction while enforcing basic standards of public conduct, all the money in the world won’t solve this crisis. In the meantime, Californians will continue to flee the state in record numbers, taking their tax dollars with them. Perhaps that’s the wake-up call Newsom and his allies need—when there’s no one left to tax to fund their failed utopian experiments.
