Bring CA Home Coalition, CSAC, Big City Mayors, League of CA Cities, Business Leaders, and Service Providers Call for Ongoing Funding for Homelessness in 2023-2024 Budget
May 11, 2023
RE: Ongoing Funding to Address Homelessness in the 2023-2024 Budget
Dear Governor Newsom, Senate President pro Tempore Atkins, Assembly Speaker Rendon, Senate Budget Chair Skinner, Assembly Budget Chair Ting:
Thank you for your commitment to addressing California’s most pressing humanitarian crisis: homelessness. The unprecedented state investments in addressing our affordable housing and homelessness crisis under your leadership have helped tens of thousands of Californians exit homelessness into permanent housing, access shelter and supportive services, and connect to care. As a result of this investment, California has significantly expanded the capacity of local homelessness response systems, including increasing access to interim and permanent housing, outreach, and targeted homelessness prevention.
The undersigned local government leaders, nonprofit service providers, business associations, advocates, and people directly impacted by homelessness humbly request you build on your commitment by prioritizing in the 2023-24 budget ongoing funding for solutions to homelessness through the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) Program, while including comprehensive accountability measures for both the local grantees and the state.
Solving homelessness will require more than ongoing funding. It will require addressing our housing crisis through continued significant investments in building and preserving more affordable and supportive housing development and increasing housing stability including expanding tenant protections. However, ongoing funding for homelessness would be transformative. A commitment of ongoing funding would establish a baseline that local homeless response systems could rely on to build capacity, support the frontline workforce of people providing services, and dedicate funding to a more comprehensive response. It will allow local recipients to fund long-term housing interventions that are difficult to provide with one-time funding and sustain the success of critical programs like Homekey. Ongoing funding would reduce administrative burdens on state and local systems, allowing more resources to go toward achieving reductions in homelessness.
We share the Administration and Legislature’s goals of greater accountability around homelessness. We welcome continued conversation on how to align metrics and set ambitious goals, define local and state roles in addressing homelessness, and ensure we are all achieving the collective outcome of sharply reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness. Ongoing funding provides a critical accountability tool that allows the state to leverage future funding to improve underperforming programs and reward high performing ones.
We share a vision of a state in which all Californians have an affordable place to live and can access the services and care they need. Creating ongoing funding to solve homelessness is a critical foundation to realizing that future.
Thank you for your continued leadership and collaboration.
Signed,
Bring CA Home Coalition
Big City Mayors Coalition
California State Association of Counties
League of California Cities
Corporation for Supportive Housing
Housing California
John Burton Advocates for Youth
National Alliance to End Homelessness
Regional Task Force on Homelessness San Diego
Central City Association of Los Angeles
Housing NOW!
All Home
Destination: Home
PATH
Brilliant Corners
LA Family Housing
Compass Family Services
Residents United Network Los Angeles
Bay Area Community Services
Swords to Plowshares
The People Concern
Downtown Womens Center
Sycamores
Episcopal Family Services
Orange County United Way