Elizabeth Funk, founder of DignityMoves, is advocating for interim housing as a cost-effective and humane solution to California’s homelessness crisis, providing private, trauma-informed, and service-rich housing to those in need.
California is seeing measurable declines in homelessness across multiple regions, offering signs of progress in a state long at the center of the national housing and homelessness crisis.
The American Psychological Association has warned that a new Trump administration executive order on homelessness could have serious consequences for mental health care, increase criminalization of vulnerable people and roll back decades of progress in evidence-based treatment.
President Trump’s Executive Order targeting unhoused individuals has been met with strong criticism from legal and public health advocates, who argue that it promotes a false and discriminatory narrative, fails to address the root causes of homelessness, and threatens to withhold federal funding from jurisdictions that do not comply with its punitive measures.
California has seen a decrease in homelessness, with the city and county of Los Angeles experiencing a 4% drop in total homelessness, but recent budget cuts threaten continued progress.
The Housing Is A Human Right organization is questioning the accuracy of the 2025 Los Angeles Homeless Count, citing discrepancies in the data and concerns about the methodology used, and is calling for transparency and clarity on how the count was conducted.
Los Angeles has seen a 17.5% reduction in street homelessness in the past year, with the city’s Inside Safe initiative and other efforts being credited for the progress, but advocacy groups caution that the crisis remains severe and systemic change is still needed.
Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis was created by a century of political choices, including the criminalization of poverty, the dismantling of mental health institutions, and the construction of luxury housing, and can be solved by building affordable housing and providing services to those in need.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the reorganization of California’s government structure to create two new agencies, the California Housing and Homelessness Agency and the Business and Consumer Services Agency, to address the state’s housing and homelessness challenges.
California lawmakers have eliminated new funding for the HHAP program in fiscal year 2025–26, potentially halting progress in addressing homelessness and forcing local governments to scale back services and programs.
California’s proposed budget for 2025-26 has cut funding for the state’s main homelessness program, leaving cities and counties reliant on other sources to continue providing services and housing for homeless individuals.
The Trump administration is actively undermining the Emergency Housing Voucher program, which helps thousands of vulnerable Californians secure housing, in order to push them back onto the streets, and is also using bureaucratic means to punish organizations that serve marginalized communities.
California’s joint budget plan for fiscal year 2025–26 does not include funding for the state’s primary program to address homelessness, HHAP, and instead only includes $50 million for the Department of Housing and Community Development’s operations.
Community groups are calling for a full investigation into the Berkeley Police Department’s surprise raid on an West Berkeley encampment, which they describe as dangerous, disproportionate, and illegal.
San Jose’s sweeps of homeless encampments are causing more harm than good, displacing people without providing them with any shelter or resources, and exacerbating the city’s homelessness crisis.
Governor Newsom’s May Revision budget proposal includes reforms to CEQA to cut bureaucratic red tape on housing development, but counties are frustrated with the lack of additional homelessness funding.
The ACLU is condemning Governor Newsom’s call for cities and counties to adopt a model ordinance banning homeless encampments on public property, calling it “cruel and inhumane” and urging local officials to reject it, instead urging the governor and state legislators to establish a long-term funding solution to ensure housing for all.
Maria Foscarinis’ forthcoming book, Housing for All, argues that homelessness is a fundamental human rights issue and calls for a rethinking of housing policy to prioritize people’s basic needs over profit.
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