加利福尼亚州的领导人一再承诺解决无家可归问题,“我知道无家可归问题可以解决,”Gavin Newsom州长在2020年国家演讲中表示,“这是我们的原因,这是我们的呼吁。
例如,在2023年,22%的加利福尼亚州注册选民告诉昆尼皮亚克大学的民意调查人员,这是他们国家面临的最紧迫的问题 - 任何挑战的最大份额。在2025年加利福尼亚州政治和伯克利大学的民意调查中,58%的州选民表示,州政府最需要改善其在无家可归和住房方面的表现 - 比任何其他政策领域都要多。
我的研究小组最近对解决无家可归者需求和减少无家可归者的国家支出进行了分析,以查看国家预算是否支持声明的政治承诺,使问题成为一个高优先级。
与2020年相同的支出水平 我们分析了加利福尼亚预算文件和立法分析,增加了针对2020年至2026年每个财政年度预防和终止无家可归的计划。
作为总基金的一部分,无家可归支出在2026年基本上与COVID-19大流行前相同。在2020财年,加利福尼亚花费大约11亿美元,而不是对通胀进行调整,用于旨在预防和终止无家可归的计划。
在COVID-19大流行期间,无家可归支出的短期增长大幅增加,当时加利福尼亚州在其历史上运行了一些最大的预算盈余,这些额外收入来自强劲的税收收,资本收益风暴和联邦大流行援助,产生了州历史上最大的预算盈余。
在2022财年,加利福尼亚州花费了大约58亿美元用于无家可归计划,相当于其总基金的2.1%。
随着这些临时盈余的减少,无家可归支出急剧下降. 它在2024财年下降到约24亿美元,或总基金的0.82%。
然后再次下降到约17亿美元,或总基金的0.55%2025年,然后回到2026年的约0.47%。
无家可归在支出飙升期间没有立即下降。
然而,加利福尼亚无家可归人数的增长速度与2010年代末的快速增长相比显著放缓。
住房和城市发展部的国家无家可归援助预算在联邦政府的2024财年共计40亿美元,该预算于9月30日结束。
加利福尼亚州的国家支出和联邦资金每年增加约22亿美元,这仍然不到加利福尼亚州总预算的1% 一些加利福尼亚州的地方政府,特别是洛杉矶市,试图通过花费资金来帮助无家可归者和减少无家可归者来填补这个差距。
在2024年11月,洛杉矶选民取代了H措施以A措施,该措施预计每年将征收超过10亿美元的销售税。结合起来,这些措施在过去十年中创造了数十亿美元的当地无家可归资金。其他司法管辖区也采取了类似的策略。例如,旧金山选民在2018年批准了C提案,创建了一项专门的商业税,用于资助无家可归服务和预防计划。
California’s leaders have repeatedly promised to tackle homelessness . “I know homelessness can be solved,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared in his 2020 state of the state address. “This is our cause. This is our calling.” But six years later, his state is spending just a small sliver of its budget, less than 0.5%, on helping the state’s estimated 181,934 people who are homeless on any given night by providing them with shelter, rental assistance and supportive housing. That share is essentially the same as in 2020. And yet homelessness is also a big priority for the public. In 2023, for example, 22% of the registered California voters told Quinnipiac University pollsters that it was the most urgent issue facing their state – the biggest share for any challenge. In a 2025 Politico and University of California Berkeley poll, 58% of the state’s voters said state government most needed to improve its performance on homelessness and housing – more than any other policy area. I study what drives homelessness and what reduces it as the director of the University of Southern California’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute . My research team recently analyzed state spending on addressing the needs of homeless people and reducing homelessness to see if state budgets back up that stated political commitment to make the issue a high priority. Same spending levels as 2020 We analyzed California budget documents and legislative analyses, adding up programs specifically targeted at preventing and ending homelessness for every fiscal year from 2020 through 2026. We found that California is spending approximately US$1.5 billion on homelessness programs in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026. This amounts to 0.47% of the state’s $321 billion general fund , the portion of the budget over which state policymakers have the most control. As a share of the general fund, homelessness spending in 2026 is essentially the same as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2020 fiscal year, California devoted approximately $1.1 billion, not adjusting for inflation, to programs targeted at preventing and ending homelessness. That was about 0.46% of its budget – and reflected spending priorities set before the COVID-19 pandemic. Brief surge in spending Homelessness spending increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, when California was running some of the largest budget surpluses in its history. That extra revenue came from strong tax collections, capital gains windfalls and federal pandemic aid, producing some of the largest budget surpluses in state history . In the 2022 fiscal year, California devoted approximately $5.8 billion to homelessness programs, equal to 2.1% of its general fund. Spending remained elevated over the following year at roughly $4.7 billion, or 1.6% of the general fund. As those temporary surpluses faded, homelessness spending fell sharply. It declined to approximately $2.4 billion, or 0.82% of the general fund, in the 2024 fiscal year. It then fell again to about $1.7 billion, or 0.55% of the general fund, in 2025 before returning to roughly 0.47% in 2026. Homelessness did not immediately decline during the spending surge. However, the pace of growth in the number of homeless people in California slowed substantially compared with the rapid increases seen in the late 2010s. And in 2025, California recorded a modest decrease for the first time in years . Other funding sources To be sure, the share of the federal budget devoted to homelessness is far smaller than California’s. The Housing and Urban Development Department’s national homelessness assistance budget totaled $4 billion in the federal government’s 2024 fiscal year , which ended on Sept. 30. That is less than 0.06% of the $7 trillion the U.S. spent in 2025 . Around $700 million of that federal spending on homelessness flows to California each year through HUD’s Continuum of Care and Emergency Solutions Grant programs. California’s state spending and this federal funding add up to approximately $2.2 billion annually, which is still less than 1% of California’s total budget . Some Californian local governments, especially the city of Los Angeles, have tried to fill the gap by spending money out of their own coffers to help the homeless and reduce homelessness. Los Angeles voters approved Measure HHH in 2016 – a $1.2 billion bond for permanent supportive housing — and Measure H in 2017, a quarter-cent sales tax generating roughly $500 million a year for homeless services. In November 2024, Los Angeles voters replaced Measure H with Measure A , a half-cent sales tax projected to raise more than $1 billion annually. Taken together, these measures have generated several billion dollars in local homelessness funding over the past decade. Other jurisdictions have pursued similar strategies. San Francisco voters, for example, approved Proposition C in 2018 , creating a dedicated business tax to fund homelessness services and prevention programs. Private philanthropy adds to the mix as well. Foundations, such as the Conrad N.