Volunteers Aleta Barthell surveys Vickie Traylor, a resident experiencing homelessness, for the annual point-in-time count in San Diego on Jan. 25, 2024. The voluntary survey is a federally mandated requirement to gather data on the region's homeless population. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMattersFaced with a multibillion dollar budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget proposal includes hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cuts to housing and homelessness programs.
The reinstatement of the tax credits for affordable housing are the “positive news” in a budget that, overall, is “pretty dire” when it comes to housing and homelessness, said Sharon Rapport, director of California state policy for The Corporation for Supportive Housing. Newsom’s proposed cuts to the Multifamily Housing Program and the grant funding for local homelessness policy are especially dispiriting because those programs focus on helping the lowest income Californians, said Nevada Merriman, vice president of policy at MidPen Housing, a nonprofit affordable housing developer. On Friday, the governor framed spending less to solve homelessness as a deliberate policy choice meant to exact better results.
Newsom also wants to cut $132.5 million in this coming fiscal year and $207.5 million the following year from the– housing for homeless people who have serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder. The program, which began in 2022, was supposed to be a main source of housing for people receiving mandated mental health treatment throughHousing cuts change picture for bond measures