Newsom’s new California homelessness plan leaves out some important details

Let’s assume that there’s a theoretical problem that needs to be addressed with a plan of action. Logically, such a plan would define the problem, declare what goals must be reached, list actions to reach the goals and, most importantly, identify the necessary logistical and financial tools required.

Humankind’s many armed conflicts have proven that plans lacking all of those elements often fail.

The allied invasion to end Nazi domination of Europe on D-Day, June 6, 1944, is a spectacular example of a meticulously detailed action plan that worked brilliantly. Conversely, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union ultimately failed because its planners underestimated the opposition and failed to account for how the German army could be supplied, particularly during the harsh Russian winter.

California’s most stubborn crisis, one that looms large in the minds of taxpayers and voters, is the state’s worst-in-the-nation level of homelessness. Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators have spent many billions of dollars on homelessness, but the number of unhoused Californians has continued to rise, approaching 200,000 in the latest count.

His administration’s latest effort, unveiled this month, is the “Action Plan for Preventing and Ending Homelessness in California 2025–2027.” It was drafted by his Interagency Council on Homelessness, which a year ago was excoriated by the state auditor’s office for failing to consistently track and evaluate the state’s homelessness spending and “ensure accountability and results.”

The auditor’s report undercut Newsom’s strenuous efforts to defend his record on homelessness and shift blame for failure to local governments which, he said, hadn’t spent state appropriations wisely.

In an introduction, Newsom hails the new action plan as “not just a report of our investments, but a directive for continued accountability and action towards specific quantifiable goals.”

Is it?

While the plan’s 100-plus pages lay out — with great repetition — lofty goals for housing the unhoused and expanding social and medical services to prevent more people from slipping into homelessness, it fails to credibly specify how they will be achieved.

One of its stated goals is to “permit more than 1.5 million homes, with no less than 710,000 of those meeting the needs of low- and very low-income households.” To achieve that in three years, the rate of housing construction would have to increase five-fold, which is not only physically impossible but would require something like $1 trillion in investments from public or private sources.

The housing and social and medical services the plan says are needed to effectively end homelessness would cost countless billions of dollars, but the plan doesn’t put price tags on its goals or actions to achieve them. Nor does it lay out how any of the money would be raised when the state faces chronic multibillion-dollar budget deficits.

A day after the plan was released on March 12, the California State Association of Counties issued a lengthy white paper that didn’t mention it specifically but nevertheless cited “critical flaws in our current broken system” and called for “smart policy solutions to address them.”

The paper lamented that “no single entity is explicitly responsible for ensuring individuals experiencing homelessness receive shelter, mental health care, or transitional housing.” It also appeared to criticize Newsom, although not by name, for refusing to provide a dedicated stream of state aid to finance long-term homelessness efforts. Providing only annual grants, it said, “creates uncertainty, making it difficult for local governments to plan and sustain effective programs.”

Unfortunately, homelessness is not an isolated case of launching big projects without fully developed plans. The haphazard and sometimes failed attempts to incorporate digital information into state government services is one, and the much troubled bullet train project is another.