The claim:
Beginning with a fact-finding trip to California in September of 2019, Trump has been vehemently highlighting the state’s homelessness crisis. The president has directed much of his ire at San Francisco (home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), where he claimed “tremendous pollution,” including needles and feces from the city’s homeless population, is “pouring into the ocean.”
The federal Environmental Protection Agency followed up with a sternly worded letter to Newsom noting the “potential water quality impacts” of homeless encampments in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The agency hasn’t taken any additional action yet.
In a Christmas tweet, the president warned of federal intervention:
Governor Gavin N has done a really bad job on taking care of the homeless population in California. If he can’t fix the problem, the Federal Govt. will get involved! https://t.co/2z8zM37PUA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 25, 2019
The facts:
No one disputes that California faces a crisis of homelessness. Though it’s inherently difficult to count the number of people experiencing homelessness at any given time, the latest federal estimate puts the statewide tally at more than 150,000 people — the highest number since at least 2007. And it’s getting worse. A late 2019 report from the Trump administration’s Housing and Urban Development agency estimated that California’s unhoused population had increased by 16.4% in the previous year alone. COVID-19 and the corresponding economic recession are likely to push even more people onto the streets.
What’s behind the numbers? There are many reasons that someone might find themselves living on someone else’s couch or on the street — losing a job, mental illness, addiction, medical bills, the vagaries of federal and state funding, domestic violence. But experts say the state’s high cost of housing is not only the most obvious but also the most important factor.
California lawmakers have blamed the Trump administration for delaying the rollout of new funding and for reducing the efficacy of the country’s low-income housing program. But housing is still primarily a state and local issue. If Trump wants to blame the state for its own homelessness crisis, he could justifiably point to California’s notoriously tight restrictions on where and how homes and shelters can be built, its elimination of state-funded redevelopment agencies and its shortage of construction workers.
The Legislature ran out the clock on this year’s session without passing significant legislation to tackle housing costs. And Critics have noted that the Newsom administration’s “Project Roomkey” program to house homeless people in vacant hotel rooms has been too modest to make much of a dent in the rising numbers of people in need.
But hypodermic needles flowing into the sea? Almost certainly not.
After the Environmental Protection Agency took aim at San Francisco, the U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris called for an investigation into whether the city and state were being “singled out” for political reasons. In May 2020, the agency’s inspector general announced that the office might look into it. Three months later, the Government Accountability Office, an independent watchdog agency, agreed to take up the case as well.
Learn more about homelessness in California here.