SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills Thursday to confront the national crisis of homelessness and assist city and county governments by removing regulatory barriers to fight homelessness.

The bills build on the historic $1 billion investment made in the budget, and new legal authority that make it easier for cities and counties to build emergency shelters.

The governor signed legislation that provides a CEQA exemption for supportive housing and shelters in the city of Los Angeles. The new laws announced today will also give Alameda County, Orange County, the cities within those counties, and San Jose, the ability to expedite the construction of emergency shelters upon declaring a shelter crisis.

“Homelessness is a national emergency that demands more than just words, it demands action,” Newsom said. “State government is now doing more than ever before to help local governments fight homelessness, expand proven programs and speed up rehousing. And just this month, the Legislature passed the strongest package of statewide renter and anti-eviction protections in the country — a top priority for this Administration that will protect Californians from unfair evictions and rent gouging that have contributed to this crisis.

Newsom added that he was “pleased to sign these bills that give local governments even more tools to confront this crisis.”

Ahead of the meeting of the Governor’s Council of Regional Homeless Advisors on Friday, the governor sent a letter to the council members urging them to focus their attention on chronic street homelessness and to identify action steps for how local governments can more quickly distribute the historic funding provided through the budget.

“The council must identify public policy changes and best practices for local communities to spend the major infusion of state dollars to address the problem of street homelessness by providing immediate emergency shelter and services,” Newsom wrote in his letter. “This should be the focus of the task force over the next three months.”

The governor continued: “I ask you to spend your remaining meetings focusing on developing concrete short-term actions and longer-term recommendations for the state to partner with local communities and the private sector to: 1) end street homelessness, 2) break down barriers to building more housing, and 3) get more people into treatment. These three challenges demand our collective focus as the council proceeds in its work.”

The governor’s 2019-2020 budget included:

* $650 million to local governments for homelessness emergency aid,
* $120 million for expanded Whole Person Care services,
* $150 million for strategies to address the shortage of mental health professionals in the public mental health system,
* $25 million for Supplemental Security Income advocacy,
* $40 million for student rapid rehousing and basic needs initiatives for students in the University of California and California State University systems,
* $20 million in legal assistance for eviction prevention,
* More than $400 million to increase grants to families in the CalWORKs program,
* Budget more than doubles the investment in the Cal-EITC Working Families Tax Credit to $1 billion, which will increase the number of participating households from 2 million to 3 million, lifting some out of poverty.
* Through the budget process, the governor also supported and signed a number of new laws that speed up shelter construction and make it easier for cities and counties to act.

The governor signed the following bills into law:

AB 58 (Rivas) – This bill requires the Governor to appoint a representative from the California Department of Education to the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council. Under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which is implemented by CDE, schools are the first points of contact to identify, interface with, and assist homeless students and their families.

AB 139 (Quirk-Silva) – This bill updates the requirements of local governments’ housing plans to address the needs of the homeless crisis, specifically by changing the criterion for assessing the need for emergency shelters and housing to a regional level, and requiring that to be accounted for as part of the Housing Element of a city or county’s General Plan.

AB 143 (Quirk-Silva) – This bill adds Alameda County, Orange County, all of the cities within those counties, and the City of San Jose to the list of jurisdictions authorized to declare a shelter crisis, which permits the suspension of state health, planning and zoning, and safety standards; those jurisdictions must then adopt a local ordinance for the design and operation of homeless shelters, which must be approved by HCD. The bill also requires these jurisdictions to develop plans to address the shelter crisis, including how to transition residents from homeless shelters to permanent supportive housing.

AB 728 (Santiago) – Previous legislation gave counties the authority to create Multidisciplinary Personnel Teams (MDTs) for homeless adults and families to facilitate the expedited identification, assessment, and linkage of homeless individuals to housing and supportive services, and allow provider agencies to share confidential information for those purposes to ensure continuity of care. This bill creates a five-year pilot program in the following counties (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Clara and Ventura) to expand the scope of an MDR to include serving individuals who are at risk of homelessness. The program would sunset on January 1, 2025.

AB 761 (Nazarian) – This bill allows, at the sole discretion of the Adjutant General (TAG), the use of any armory deemed vacant by the California Military Department throughout the year by the county or city in which the armory is located for the purpose of providing temporary shelter from hazardous weather conditions for homeless persons.

AB 1188 (Gabriel) – This bill creates a legal framework allowing a tenant, with the written approval of the owner or landlord, to take in a person who is at risk of homelessness. It includes a number of protections for both the landlord and tenant, including the ability for the tenant to remove the person at risk of homelessness on short notice.

AB 1197 (Santiago) – This bill provides a CEQA exemption for supportive housing and shelters in the city of Los Angeles.

AB 1235 (Chu) – This bill renames the runaway and homeless youth shelters run by the Department of Social Services as “youth homelessness and prevention centers,” expands the categories of youth for which the centers are required to provide services to also include youth at risk of homelessness and youth exhibiting status offender behavior, and expands the time a youth can stay in the center from 21 to 90 days.

AB 1745 (Kalra) – Earlier legislation authorized San Jose to build and operate emergency bridge housing for the homeless during a declared shelter crisis, and required that each person housed in the bridge housing be placed in an affordable housing unit. This bill extends the sunset date from January 1, 2022 to January 1, 2025, for San Jose to meet these obligations.

SB 211 (Beall) – This bill authorizes Caltrans to lease its property to local governments for the purpose of an emergency shelter or feeding program for $1 per month plus administrative fees.

SB 450 (Umberg) – This bill provides a CEQA exemption until January 2025 for hotels converted to supportive housing.

SB 687 (Rubio) – This bill requires the governor to appoint a representative of the state public higher education system to the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council.

SB 744 (Caballero) – This bill provides a CEQA exemption for supportive housing and No Place Like Home projects.

To read more about the bills, click here and enter the bill number in the search field.

Ridley-Thomas Applauds Governor’s Action to Address Homelessness
Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, also co-chair of the Council of Regional Homeless Advisors, commented in a statement Thursday night, which follows:

“I applaud Governor Gavin Newsom for responding with urgency and conviction to address what I consider the moral and civic crisis of our time.

“By signing a compendium of critical legislation, he removed regulatory barriers that have slowed or prevented us from building supportive housing and shelters. This complements his historic $1 billion investment in the state budget specifically to address homelessness.

“Today, the Governor directed his Council of Regional Homeless Advisors to identify the most effective ways to spend state money to alleviate chronic street homelessness. He also sought recommendations for bringing our most vulnerable residents indoors and providing them with treatment and other services.

“I am confident that the council will rise to the challenge with urgency and conviction to identify the short- and long-term solutions that the governor has requested.

“The governor has used the power of his purse and his pen to take bold steps to help address this humanitarian crisis. His Council of Regional Homeless Advisors will heed his call and work swiftly to identify complementary solutions to build on this effort, motivated by our common goal and obligation — making sure all Californians have a roof over their head and are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.”