When President-elect Donald Trump moves into the White House in January, he will become a key figure in California’s homelessness crisis, holding the federal purse strings and setting policy at the national level.
So what will this change of power mean for the state as it tries to move its nearly 186,000 homeless residents — the most in the nation — indoors?
Housing and homeless services experts in California worry the Trump administration will cut federal funding in those areas, while also doing away with policies deemed too “progressive.”
But surprisingly, based on what he’s said so far about one of the key issues regarding homelessness, Trump’s agenda isn’t much different from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s. Trump pledged to tackle the encampments that have made cities “unlivable” by working with states to ban urban camping and arrest those who don’t comply — something many cities in California started doing before Election Day, as Newsom encouraged them to clear camps.
“The homeless have no right to turn every park and sidewalk into a place for them to squat and do drugs,” Trump said in a campaign video posted online in April, 2023. The video appears to be the last time he revealed specific homelessness policy intentions.