Gavin Newsom on Welfare & Poverty

	Gavin Newsom on Welfare & Poverty S.F. Mayor; former Gov. cand.

Homelessness must be at the top of our agenda

The most pernicious crisis in our midst is the ultimate manifestation of poverty: homelessness. It is a disgrace. It is our responsibility, and it must be at the top of our agenda.

We are making available 286 state properties--vacant lots, fairgrounds, armories and other state buildings--to be used by local governments, for free, for homelessness solutions. We have lease templates ready to go--and we're ready for partnership.

When we don't build housing for people at all income levels, we worsen the homeless crisis. It's a vicious cycle. And the only sustainable way out of it is to massively increase housing production. Let's match our courage on homelessness with courage on housing supply. This means a commitment--right now, this year--to major reform that will eliminate red tape, and delays for building critically needed housing--like affordable, multifamily homes--especially near transit and downtowns.

Source: 2020 California State of the State address , Feb 19, 2020

Right to Shelter: work with counties on homelessness

Some have recommended a legal "Right to Shelter." It's a provocative idea which forced the State to explore the limits of what local governments can be compelled to do. But right now, our imperative must be bringing governments together as working partners, not sparring partners in a court of law. Instead we are proposing strict accountability, comprehensive audits and a "do-it-or-lose-it" policy to hold local governments responsible for results. Take action or lose access to this new funding.

California has and will continue to extend its hand of partnership to Washington, seeking to jointly address this issue. Honestly, this partnership should be a given. But empty words and symbolic gestures won't mask a 15 percent across-the-board cut to HUD's budget. I'm old enough to remember when HUD was in the housing business. And I'm hopeful it will be again. After all, homelessness isn't a blue or a red issue. It's an everyone issue--a blight on the soul of America.

Source: 2020 California State of the State address , Feb 19, 2020

Nearly $2 billion to create more homeless housing

I'm mindful that we aren't truly addressing the needs of people in poverty unless we account for the biggest pressure most families face: housing and housing stability. Project Roomkey, launched in April, has provided over 35,000 homeless Californians with safe shelter from COVID. And Homekey, launched in July, created more than 6,000 new permanent housing units during the pandemic, buying hotels and motels and converting them at a third of the cost of traditional supportive housing.

Now, bringing the same spirit of innovation behind Project Roomkey and Homekey, we're committing nearly $2 billion this year to create more homeless housing, addressing mental health and substance abuse issues, and ending homelessness one person at a time. No one denies this is a huge challenge, but we know what it means to stare down big challenges.

Source: 2021 State of the State Address to California legislature , Mar 9, 2021

Address homelessness with 55,000 new housing units

The Governor's Blueprint ensures vulnerable people have the necessary help to get off our streets and get the mental health treatment they need. The plan adds $2 billion for mental health housing and services and clearing encampments. Governor Newsom's new investments expand on last year's $12 billion package--all told, creating 55,000 new housing units and treatment slots for people exiting homelessness. Source: 2022 State of the State Address to California legislature , Feb 10, 2022

Finish welfare reform by moving able recipients into jobs.

Newsom adopted the manifesto, "A New Agenda for the New Decade":

Help Working Families Lift Themselves from Poverty
In the 1990s, Americans resolved to end welfare dependency and forge a new social compact on the basis of work and reciprocal responsibility. The results so far are encouraging: The welfare rolls have been cut by more than half since 1992 without the social calamities predicted by defenders of the old welfare entitlement. People are more likely than ever to leave welfare for work, and even those still on welfare are four times more likely to be working. But the job of welfare reform will not be done until we help all who can

work to find and keep jobs -- including absent fathers who must be held responsible for supporting their children.

In the next decade, progressives should embrace an even more ambitious social goal -- helping every working family lift itself from poverty. Our new social compact must reinforce work, responsibility, and family. By expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing the supply of affordable child care, reforming tax policies that hurt working families, making sure absent parents live up to their financial obligations, promoting access to home ownership and other wealth-building assets, and refocusing other social policies on the new goal of rewarding work, we can create a new progressive guarantee: No American family with a full-time worker will live in poverty.

Goals for 2010

Cut the poverty rate in half.
Double child support collections and require every father who owes child support to go to work to pay it off.

Source: The Hyde Park Declaration 00-DLC3 on Aug 1, 2000