California’s homelessness crisis has reached a boiling point—and not only on our sidewalks and encampments, but also in the chambers of government. What should be a unified front against a humanitarian disaster has instead fractured into a web of blame, bureaucratic dysfunction, and deepening intergovernmental distrust.
While unhoused Californians wait for shelter, services, and a pathway to stability, cities and counties are increasingly locked in political turf wars over who is responsible for doing what.
Governor Gavin Newsom has not been shy about placing blame. He’s chastised local governments for inaction, accusing them of moral failure.
“Truly a ridiculous lack of local leadership,” he posted on social media last month in response to a dispute in the city of Turlock, which had turned down state-approved funding for a homeless shelter.
While his frustration may be understandable—the situation is far more complicated than simply a failure of will.
What’s unfolding across California is a systemic breakdown rooted in the state’s fragmented governance of homelessness.
Cities typically provide shelters, police outreach, and land-use authority.
Counties are responsible for behavioral health services, mental health treatment, and substance use programs—services that are essential for unhoused individuals to get off the streets and stay off.
But there is no clear mandate from the state that spells out how cities and counties should coordinate, fund, or share responsibility for homelessness programs.
The result is confusion, duplication, blame-shifting, and, ultimately, failure.
In San Diego, the breakdown is on full display. In his State of the City address, Mayor Todd Gloria delivered a pointed rebuke to the County of San Diego, accusing it of failing to provide adequate behavioral health services and forcing the city to shoulder too much of the burden. The clash reached a crescendo over the Rosecrans Shelter, a 150-bed facility that operates on county-owned land adjacent to a psychiatric hospital. While the city runs the shelter, the county provides utilities and behavioral health care.
Now, the county plans to demolish a vacant building on the property, severing water and power to the shelter. Mayor Gloria insists that this renders the shelter uninhabitable and is demanding the county fund utility restoration or relocation efforts—at a cost of up to $2 million. The county counters that the demolition is not a valid reason to shut down the shelter and questions the mayor’s assertions. With a looming $258 million budget deficit, Gloria has floated closing the shelter entirely if the county won’t step up. Meanwhile, the fate of 150 vulnerable individuals hangs in limbo.
This example is emblematic of a wider failure to collaborate.
Similar tensions are playing out in the Central Valley, where the city of Turlock refused to allow Stanislaus County to support a shelter unless specific demands were met, including expanded bathroom access to appease nearby businesses. The $270,000 in state-approved funds could have kept the 50-bed facility open. Instead, bureaucratic friction and miscommunication may lead to the shelter’s closure.
The county is exasperated.
“I don’t know how you can turn your back on these individuals and just let them die out there,” said Stanislaus County Supervisor Terry Withrow.
Even in Los Angeles, home to the largest population of unhoused residents in the country, decades of city-county collaboration are unraveling.
For over 30 years, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) served as a joint agency coordinating efforts between the city and county. Despite its noble intentions, LAHSA grew unwieldy, opaque, and inefficient—two damning audits in the past year criticized the agency for failing to track outcomes or spending effectively.
In response, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to withdraw over $300 million and more than 700 employees from LAHSA to establish a new standalone county agency.
Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman opposed the move, warning it could derail hard-won progress and disrupt existing programs that rely on integrated city-county funding streams. Yet the county forged ahead, leaving the city scrambling to figure out how to continue services without a shared structure.
The new county agency may well improve transparency and oversight. But it’s also a powerful reminder of how fractured California’s homelessness response has become. As programs are split and partnerships dissolve, the people relying on these services are left in a state of uncertainty.
The problem is there is no clear roadmap for how local governments should share responsibility for homelessness. Especially in tight budget years, cities are reluctant to fund services they believe the county should cover—and vice versa. This creates an incentive to avoid responsibility, delay solutions, and prioritize political optics over practical outcomes.
Senator Catherine Blakespear tried to address this problem with SB 16, a bill that would have required counties to pay half the cost of city-run homeless shelters in order to receive state homelessness funding.
However, the bill was met with intense opposition from counties, which argued that they should not be forced to pay for city projects over which they have no control. Ultimately, the bill was gutted and became yet another missed opportunity to bring structure to a broken system.
That was a major disappointment for leaders like San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who is working to open 1,000 new interim housing units this year in tiny homes and motels. Mahan says his city can’t continue expanding shelter capacity unless Santa Clara County provides case management and support services. But the county insists it cannot be forced to pay for programs that the city creates independently.
This kind of standoff leads nowhere. Without coordination and shared accountability, shelters close, services disappear, and more people are left to suffer on the streets.
California has a big enough homelessness crisis that it doesn’t have to compound it with structural ineptitude and bureaucratic infighting.
What the state needs is a unified, statewide framework that clearly defines the responsibilities of cities and counties—and the funding mechanisms to support those responsibilities with performance-based accountability for local governments receiving state funds.
And, most of all, the state needs leadership that prioritizes collaboration over conflict—something that seems woefully missing.
Right now, the political blame game isn’t just toxic—it’s deadly.
The people losing in this political tug-of-war aren’t mayors or supervisors. They’re the thousands of Californians living in tents, under overpasses, or in temporary shelters facing closure. They don’t care who writes the checks. They just want a safe place to sleep, the support to heal, and a chance at stability.
Until our public institutions are willing to fight for them—and not just with each other—California’s homelessness crisis will only deepen. And no amount of finger-pointing will cover for that failure.
From article: “And, most of all, the state needs leadership that prioritizes collaboration over conflict—something that seems woefully missing.”
That’s for sure. Representatives like Newsom, Bonta, and Wiener have adopted a Trump-like, dictatorial approach in regard to the cities they’re supposed to be serving. (In regard to more than one issue, needless to say.) I’m not the only one who has noticed this – columnist Dan Walters has written about this (in regard to Newsom), as well.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/05/newsom-trump-weakness-political-hardball/
Turlock gave up the state money because they didn’t want Gavvy’s state conditions tied to the funding were too restrictive. When you take state money, there are ongoing costs and obligations restrictions on the models of shelter or services. And there is no clear path to sustain services once the state funds run out. Turlock, wisely, prioritized local control and long-term financial caution over free state money. And what RO said about Gavvy, Bonta, Wiener.