Read the full article by Chris Nichols at CapRadio
Sacramento officials say they’ll consider applying for some of the $300 million in homeless encampment funds made available this week by Governor Gavin Newsom.
But the program by itself won’t pay cities and counties to remove the vast tent communities that line streets and sidewalks across California.
Instead, to secure any money, local governments must come up with plans for how to shelter or house people living in the camps and offer them as alternatives to life on the street.
“These dollars are not intended for enforcement,” Sacramento County spokesperson Janna Haynes explained. “They are intended for solutions. And that’s why you have to come with a project. You can’t just apply for the money and figure out what to do with it later. You have to have a project in mind that has a solution attached to it.”
Haynes said that’s what Sacramento County did to secure $20 million through an earlier round of the state’s Encampment Resolution Funding program. Since its inception in 2021, the program has awarded $414 million to 66 communities statewide, according to the governor’s office.