NLIHC released a statement on July 26 strongly condemning California Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order last week urging local communities to sweep homeless encampments without providing immediate, safe housing alternatives. Governor Newsom’s announcement followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson to allow jurisdictions to arrest and ticket unhoused people for sleeping outside, even when adequate shelter or housing is not available.
“Governor Newsom’s pursuit of political expediency will harm unhoused people and worsen homelessness in communities throughout California,” said NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel. “He is flouting decades of evidence on effective solutions and urging communities to merely move unhoused people out of public view rather than work to solve their homelessness. Urging communities to use an ineffective, harmful, wasteful tactic to relieve political pressure on himself isn’t leadership. It’s cowardice.”
“These ineffective and inhumane tactics exacerbate homelessness by saddling unhoused people with debt they can’t pay, while further isolating them from the services and support they need to become stably housed,” said Ms. Yentel. “These actions will disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, who, through decades of historic and ongoing systemic racism, suffer from unsheltered homelessness at much higher rates. To truly address and solve homelessness, policymakers must instead work with urgency to scale up proven solutions, starting with greater investments in affordable housing and supportive services.”
The primary causes of homelessness are the inability to afford housing and the severe shortage of affordable homes. In California, for every 10 of the lowest-income households, there are just two apartments that are affordable and available to them. Nationally, there is a shortage of 7.3 million homes affordable and available to people with the lowest incomes. Without affordable options, more than 10 million of these households pay more than half of their limited incomes on rent, leaving them with few resources to make ends meet. They are always one financial shock away from falling behind on rent and facing eviction and, in the worst cases, homelessness. Despite the clear need, only one in four people eligible for housing assistance receives any help due to chronic underfunding by Congress.
Decades of research demonstrate that the most effective approach to addressing homelessness is to provide individuals with access to stable, affordable, accessible housing and voluntary supportive services, such as case management, mental health and substance use services, and employment services to help improve housing stability and well-being. This approach – known as “Housing First” – has garnered bipartisan support and is credited with having cut veteran homelessness in half since 2010.
To fully address America’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis, Congress must invest at the scale needed to ensure that renters with the lowest incomes have an affordable place to call home. As outlined in NLIHC’s national HoUSed campaign policy agenda, federal investments are needed to bridge the gap between incomes and housing costs through universal rental assistance, build and preserve rental homes affordable to people with the lowest incomes, prevent evictions and homelessness by stabilizing families during a crisis, and strengthen and enforce renter protections to address the power imbalance that tilts heavily in favor of landlords.