Newsom gave up on yet another promise to California’s homeless. No one is surprised | Opinion

It is unacceptable that Gov. Gavin Newsom would promise 1,200 tiny homes to Sacramento, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego County, and only follow through on a few hundred in Sacramento — leaving the program entirely in the lurch during a budget deficit year.

The Newsom administration seeks only to pay lip service to the crisis of homelessness in our state, rather than doing something tangible to help.

More than a year ago, during his four-day statewide tour instead of a State of the State address, Gov. Newsom stood inside Cal Expo and promised his administration would fund the thousand-plus tiny homes across the state. The cost of the homes would be funded by the state and then delivered and set up by the California National Guard. Sacramento would receive 350 tiny homes; Los Angeles would get 500; San Jose, 200; and San Diego County, 150.

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But in the last year, Sacramento was the only city to identify a placement site for those homes: Half would go to a site off Stockton Blvd., and the other half would go to a site on Watt Ave. Neither Sacramento-area site has opened yet, and the other three locations have never moved past the planning stages, nor have they ever even identified a usable site.

Late last year, the state informed the cities that — actually, no, they wouldn’t be getting pre-built homes delivered on the state’s dime — the state would cut them a check instead, and they could buy the tiny homes at a reduced cost. They’d have to ship and build them out on their own, too. Cal Matters reported that San Jose would receive $13.3 million for tiny homes but that building the homes for 200 people would cost $22.7 million, according to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

And as recently as January of this year, one of the six manufacturers of the tiny homes who were awarded contracts for the program said they didn’t know where their products were going, or when.

The state has been stringing them along, as well as us.

Newsom’s defenders, including Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, said it’s the governor’s job to dream big and sometimes fail — but that’s an overly generous interpretation of events. The situation can be less gratuitously read as just another broken promise to Californians.

As Newsom and his administration have played games with the lives of Californians, the state’s homelessness crisis has grown only more dire: Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported there are 181,399 unhoused Californians, comprising 28% of the nation’s total homeless population. According to the 2022 Point in Time Count, Sacramento has more than 9,000 people living with homelessness.

According to reporting by Capital Public Radio, Sacramento was allotted $23.3 million by the state for 350 tiny homes, but just the one site on Stockton Blvd. will cost an estimated $22.5 million. That leaves just $800,000 to buy 175 tiny homes for the site on Watt Avenue — at a cost of approximately $100,000 per home.

What are they going to do? Set up eight tiny homes and call it a day? Or will that money just mysteriously disappear into the city budget — again?

Sacramentans are used to excuses from our city and county on homelessness. Time and time again we have been promised shelters and programs, only to watch helplessly as millions are wasted, huge budgets are overblown and our elected politicians give up on — or worse, sweep — our vulnerable neighbors living on the streets.

I guess we really shouldn’t have expected anything more from the state.

A previous version of this column cited an incorrect number for how much the city of San Jose was allotted by the state for tiny homes. The correct number is $13.3 million.