California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sent a letter to federal housing chief Ben Carson urging the Trump administration to address homelessness by providing more funding for affordable housing.
In his letter to the Housing and Urban Development secretary, Newsom thanked Carson for his “offer to provide resources to California” to address homelessness ― and also pushed for these resources to go toward initiatives that “go beyond temporary tent villages.”
The California governor warned that if federal aid provided only temporary shelters and did not include “significant” resources for building more affordable housing, “we risk creating permanent homeless encampments on federal land.”
“Emergency shelter solves sleep and we agree this is an urgent priority,” wrote the California governor. “But only housing and services solve homelessness.”
HuffPost did not immediately get a response from HUD to its request for comment.
Amid a nationwide affordable housing crisis, California has one of the highest rates of homelessness. On any given day in January 2018, more than 500,000 people were homeless in the U.S. ― and nearly a quarter of those lived in California.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Democratic officeholders in California over the high rates of homelessness. At one point last year, he said that people living on the streets were ruining the “prestige” of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Late last year, Trump’s head of federal homelessness policy at the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness said he was working on a new strategy to address homelessness but has yet to reveal details. Advocates have long recommended a “housing first” approach to tackling the issue, and some expressed worry that Trump may push cities to round up homeless people.
Newsom’s letter advocated for additional housing vouchers from the federal government ― and pointed out the state had requested 50,000 more vouchers in letters to Trump last year. The governor also pointed to how California recently required state agencies to identify state land that local governments could use free to provide shelter and build housing for unhoused residents ― and he suggested the Trump administration do the same with surplus federal land.
Homeless rates have worsened in California in recent years, with spikes in the number of homeless residents in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles specifically over the past two years.
Newsom’s letter thanked Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti for leading efforts for “urgent solutions” to homelessness. Carson is reportedly meeting with Garcetti this week to discuss homelessness. HuffPost did not immediately get confirmation from HUD or Garcetti.
This week, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf also met with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) in Washington D.C., where Schaaf attended the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the two discussed homelessness and the need for additional federal resources to address it.
The California governor’s proposed budget for 2020 includes over $1 billion to address homelessness.