San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher has been working alongside 12 other California officials to try and find a way to resolve the problem of homelessness in our state. The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom recently announced that 13 elected officials and representatives would be taking a stand on the issue of homelessness in California.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg are the two co-chairs of the group, which will gather in numerous areas of California to deliberate the topic.
Supervisor Fletcher said he was “honored” that Newsom asked him to help with the “newly created task force” for homelessness and supportive housing. Fletcher seemed very excited to be helping address homelessness, but he has not been as enthusiastic about other important issues he promised to address. These include mental health services, protecting the environment, housing affordability, and improving transit accessibility for the people of San Diego.
It’s a bit odd that Newsom selected Fletcher, given the Supervisor’s shortage of experience with the issue. Both Newsom and Fletcher seem to lack any meaningful policy proposals that go beyond recklessly throwing money at a problem in hopes that it disappears.
Governor Newsom has made it clear that he wants to use a large portion of the state’s budget to work with local officials on combating homelessness. Back in April, California cities, including San Diego, tried to establish specific areas of available land to have more available housing. Newsom has set aside about $1.3 billion dollars for building houses in his budget for 2020, which was signed in June.
Newsom has said that they “need to work collectively to source local solutions from mayors, county supervisors and city councils and implement those solutions at scale statewide.”
There are already three meetings that plan to meet within the next three months in No Cal, So Cal and the Central Valley. Official locations and dates will be released at a later date.
