Homelessness

As California's homelessness crisis continues, its politicians are carping over who should be held responsible for resolving it.

From CalMatters homelessness policy reporter Jeanne Kuang: Fed up with homeless encampments, California local officials are seeking guidance from the nation’s most powerful judges.  In a legal brief filed Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court, the California State Association of Counties and League of California Cities told the justices that a string of federal court […]

A Sacramento woman with bipolar disorder reflects on her own experience with involuntary hospitalization and the potentially fatal alternative she faced.

Our newsletter writer Lynn La is away this week. I’m Sameea Kamal, politics reporter here at CalMatters, and I’ll be bringing you WhatMatters for the next few days.  California’s governor doesn’t typically comment on legislation — something he reiterated during a talk on stage at Climate Week NYC on Sunday. Except when he does.  At […]

Police can’t force homeless people from encampments unless the city in question has “adequate shelter” to offer the people getting forced off the street, according to courts. Now everyone involved wants to know what “adequate shelter” is.

The Legislature kicked off the final, frenzied week of session on Monday with a couple of big questions:  Would there be a grand bargain between labor and the fast food industry? Yes.  As CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang and Alexei Koseff explain, a last-minute deal in the form of Assembly Bill 1228 includes goodies for both sides: […]

California is struggling with the intertwined crises of homelessness and mental illness. But are Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new CARE Courts the right prescription? That depends largely on whether county courts and mental health departments succeed as they roll out the program starting in October. And as CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang details, that’s definitely a work in […]

From CalMatters state Capitol reporter Sameea Kamal: It was a case that some said threatened to erode California’s voting rights law. But after a ruling by the state’s Supreme Court on Thursday, some of its protections are reaffirmed, for now.   The case, filed by the Pico Neighborhood Association and others in 2016, alleged that Santa […]

California has spent billions of dollars on its worst-in-the-nation homelessness crisis but has little to show for it, in part because of squabbling among state and local officials.

If California Gov. Gavin Newsom debates Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, expect the state's homelessness crisis to be a major point of conflict.