In summary
CalMatters’ homelessness coverage this year has spanned multiple investigations, stories and resources that led to real-world impact.
CalMatters was honored with the Stewart B. McKinney Award by the National Homelessness Law Center in November. The awards honor “leaders who raise awareness about and advance solutions to homelessness and poverty.”
As a part of its 2025 Human Right to Housing awards, the center highlighted CalMatters’ “multi-part, multimedia series, spending several months interviewing experts on homelessness, doing a deep dive on all available data and most importantly, visiting encampments to document firsthand how enforcement efforts have displaced unhoused people and the devastating aftermath of these cruel and inhumane sweeps. It is exactly this type of journalistic integrity that our country so desperately needs in this time of misinformation, and we are so grateful for the high-quality reporting that CalMatters is bringing to the homelessness crisis.”
CalMatters reporting has captured the day-to-day reality for homeless people on the streets of California.
A great example of this is our series documenting the impact of Grants Pass v. Johnson, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities did not have to have a shelter bed available before punishing someone for sleeping on the street. That ruling, stemming from an ordinance enacted by an Oregon town, has had huge consequences for California, home to more unhoused individuals than any other state, more than 187,000 by the most recent count.
CalMatters journalists spent four months interviewing experts, requesting data and making a dozen visits to encampments in San Francisco and Fresno to document enforcement efforts and follow the unhoused people displaced when their camps were cleared. Our public media partner, KPBS, did extensive reporting and visits to encampments in San Diego.
Our reporting showed that every time a homeless person is forced to move, the odds that they lose something increase. That can include identification and documentation critical to obtaining housing and the medication a person needs to survive. Moving also makes it harder for someone to stay in touch with case managers and social workers working to get homeless people into housing.
Homeless Californians also have more difficulty getting to jobs and keeping appointments like court dates. Every time they get arrested or forced to move, that gets harder. Missed court dates can eventually lead to warrants and fines: More barriers to obtaining housing and getting off the street.
CalMatters’ homelessness coverage also spanned multiple investigations, stories and resources. Our work has led to real-world impact.
Two California families were reunited in 2025 after seeing loved ones who are homeless quoted in CalMatters articles. One woman found her sister after losing contact with her in 2019. Another woman found her father, who she’d been searching for without luck. In addition to sharing the stories of these two families, CalMatters also created a resource on what to do if your loved one is homeless.
Fremont backed down after proposing a ban on ‘aiding and abetting’ homeless encampments.
In 2025, Fremont’s city council revised a new city camping ordinance, removing what had become a controversial clause — first reported on by CalMatters — that could have punished those “aiding and abetting” encampments. The ordinance makes it illegal to camp on streets, sidewalks, parks and other public property, but what separated it from other efforts was explicit language that would make anyone “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing” an illegal encampment guilty of a misdemeanor. Local homeless advocates feared this could be enforced against workers and volunteers providing aid to unhoused people in Fremont.
Lawmakers advanced a new bill to increase homeless shelter oversight, citing our reporting as the catalyst for action.
Under the new proposal, local governments would be required to perform annual inspections of taxpayer-funded shelters, and cities and counties could lose state funding if they fail to correct code violations or keep neglecting to file mandatory reports. The bill has passed the assembly and is on to the senate. The 2025 proposal followed a CalMatters exposé on homeless shelter failures, and our 2024 investigation revealing that cities and counties have been ignoring a state law requiring basic safety and sanitation checks in shelters. Watch lawmakers discuss this bill, and our reporting.
A CalMatters lawsuit forced LA officials to turn over secret homeless shelter complaints.
In 2025, Los Angeles officials began releasing thousands of internal records related to conditions inside homeless shelters in response to a CalMatters lawsuit challenging their repeated public records denials. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, better known as LAHSA committed to releasing at least 175 incident reports every other week until the public records request is fulfilled. The agency estimated there are 5,000 such reports.
Read all of CalMatters coverage on homelessness in California.