Get the news that matters to all Californians. Start every week informed.People under an overpass at Guadalupe River Park in San Jose, on Jan. 12, 2024. A recent abatement effort cleared many encampments where unhoused people were sleeping, but some individuals continue residing in the park. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMattersA multi-year, $750 million program aimed at doing away with homeless encampments has had mixed results throughout California. Local leaders say ongoing funding is needed.
But an analysis of preliminary progress reports submitted to the state, as well as interviews with early Encampment Resolution Fund grant recipients, shows the program has had mixed results up and down California. Even in San Jose, it hasn’t met its overarching goal of finding permanent housing for most of the people moved off the river trail.
“I think what we’re really seeing across the board and with this funding is it’s just taking so much longer to get people into housing because there’s a lack of affordable resources,” said Jennifer Hark Dietz, CEO of PATH, a homeless services nonprofit that worked with San Jose and several other cities to administer the grants.
Regardless of what happens in that case, Newsom’s administration has made clear that cities hoping to use state encampment resolution funds must do more than simply kick people out of an encampment. They must plan to “resolve the experience of unsheltered homelessness” for the camp residents.As the grant money runs out, some local leaders and service providers worry the gains they made might be reversed without additional funding to keep up the work they started.
But money from the state could have made a big difference in Paramount, Coumparoules said. There are no shelter beds within the city limits, and the shelter up the road in Bell is full. The river remains a “hotbed” of homeless camps, he said. When the second round of grants opened, Chico applied again for a different encampment. Again, the city was rejected. This time, the state said Chico’s plan to move people from the camp into permanent housing fell short.