Nearly $300 million will be awarded to local jurisdictions, while another portion will go to the state’s transportation department to sweep homeless camps on state property, including bike paths, parks, and on the sides of highways. "We've got to move, people are counting on us," Newsom said during a news briefing this week. "The public has had it, they're fed up, I'm fed up, we're all fed up." So far, California has removed more than 5,600 encampments and the new allocation will add to the $415 million provided through the state’s Encampment Resolution Fund (ERF) that was established in 2021. The program was designed to provide funding to help people living in homeless encampments into housing. "I think we can all agree that we need to do more to clean up encampments," Newsom added. "We weren't just cleaning up encampments — out of sight, out of mind — and displacing people, removing people, but that we're trying to resolve the underlying issues in the first place and actually support people in getting them back on their feet to self-sufficiency." California’s homelessness crisis was spotlighted in national news again this month after Newsom was able to wipe homeless encampments from San Francisco streets in only a matter of days, just prior to a visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Some speculated that officials relocated San Francisco’s homeless population to nearby Oakland. “Through the Encampment Resolution Grants, Caltrans is working to connect people experiencing homelessness on its right-of-way to more secure and stable housing situations offered by local partners,” Alisa Becerra, Caltrans Deputy Division Chief, Office of Homelessness and Encampments, Division of Maintenance, said in a joint statement. “The strength of this effort relies on collaboration, trust, and a shared commitment to creating real solutions that help the people who need it most.” Some experts are also warning that the state could see a significant uptick in homelessness, as post-pandemic eviction cases increase. “We’re facing the eviction cliff we tried to prevent during the pandemic,” said Tim Thomas, a sociologist and director of the Urban Displacement Project at UC Berkeley.California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to remove homeless encampments littering the state.
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