California governor makes homelessness top issue in 2020

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Tossing aside tradition, California’s governor on Wednesday devoted his biggest platform to a single issue: solving a homelessness crisis that has overwhelmed the nation’s most populous state in an era of unprecedented prosperity.

Governors typically use their annual “State of the State” speeches to touch on dozens of priorities because they are guaranteed an audience of lawmakers from both political parties as well as statewide media coverage. On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the state’s homeless problem “a disgrace,” saying the state can no longer treat it as “someone else’s problem, buried below other priorities which are easier to win or better suited for soundbites.”

Newsom framed the speech as a challenge to state lawmakers, urging them to make it easier for local authorities to force the mentally ill into treatment, ease the state’s famously strict environmental regulations to speed up construction of homeless shelters and come up with a new funding source for homeless services to replace the state’s habit of relying on one-time surpluses that vary from year to year.

And he made a plea for partnership with the federal government, pitching his idea to use

Medicaid money to pay for housing as well as medical benefits.

“Health care and housing can nolonger be divorced,” Newsom said. “Doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin or antibiotics.”

Newsom’s proposed budget includes $695 million to overhaul the state’s Medicaid program, the joint federal and state health insurance program for the poor and disabled. Newsom wants to use Medicaid money to pay for things such as security deposits or first and last month’s rent — expenses that can sometimes push people onto the streets and lead to more expensive medical treatment.