Online event to help cities tap bond funding to house homeless
3 min read
The League of California cities will host a webinar to help potential applicants tap $3.3 billion in funding being fast-tracked by the governor from a bond measure approved by voters in March.
The funding being released in August is the first tranche from the
No bonds have been issued to support the program yet, said Joe DeAnda, a spokesman in the state treasurer’s office. The first finance committee for the bonds is slated to meet on Aug. 21, he said.
Cities and counties can apply for the funds from Aug. 9 through Dec. 13.
The
Caroline Grinder, Cal Cities’ legislative representative, will moderate the online event. The speakers are Kim McCoy Wade, senior advisor on aging, disability and Alzheimer’s in the governor’s office and Molly Wiltshire, the governor’s director of external affairs.
Bloomberg News
The bond measure was designed to help cities, counties, tribes and developers build or renovate treatment centers and clinics and construct supportive housing for homeless people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse programs.
The program, which was championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is expected to result in the construction of 4,350 housing units. It requires counties to spend two-thirds of the money from the Mental Health Services Act, roughly $1 billion a year, on housing for homeless people suffering from mental illnesses or substance abuse programs.
The Mental Health Services Act, approved by voters in 2004, imposes a 1% income tax on personal income over $1 million a year to fund mental health services. The proposition did not alter the tax, it just changed where part of the funding goes, and also reforms how mental health services are provided.
Some of the counties balked at having the funding diverted from existing programs toward this effort.
But county leaders in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles
Newsom also is having trouble getting buy-in from two other efforts to hasten progress in housing the state’s homeless population.
He has received backlash in some quarters over his
And, Newsom sent a letter to the counties Sunday asking them to speed up work to implement changes to the state’s conservatorship laws. The changes were made possible by the passage last year of Senate Bill 43, which aims to overhaul the state’s behavioral health care system.
The measure updated the definition of “gravely disabled,” for those eligible for a conservatorship to include people unable to care for themselves due to severe substance abuse or mental health illnesses.
County mental health departments have until January 2026 to implement the changes. In his letter, the governor said he is disappointed that only two counties — San Francisco and San Luis Obispo — have taken advantage of the law, and only a few others plan to implement it in 2025.
“Despite having unprecedented tools at your disposal to start helping our state’s most vulnerable people right now, you are still waiting to implement this element of the work to improve our conservatorship system until the absolute deadline,” Newsom wrote.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who sponsored the law authored by Sen. Susan Eggman, said the counties’ delays are “costing people their lives.”
“Mental illness is a life-threatening issue for some unsheltered residents in San Diego, and the mayor wants to see movement now,” said Dave Rolland, the San Diego mayor’s deputy director of communications. “The city of San Diego is doing its part by making it easier to site facilities that provide desperately needed residential care for this vulnerable population.”
