The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a)As of January 2019, California has had an estimated 151,278 people experiencing homelessness on any given day, as reported by Continuum of Care to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is the highest number since 2007, and represents a 17-percent increase since 2018.

(b)African Americans are disproportionately represented among California’s homeless population. While 6.5 percent of Californians identify as black or African American, almost 40 percent of the state’s homeless population is African American, far outpacing the rates of poverty among African Americans in general. Similarly, indigenous populations have rates of homelessness that are several times higher than among people who are White, and rates of homelessness among Latinx communities are rapidly rising.

(c)The vast majority of homeless Californians were unsheltered, which is about 71 percent and the highest rate in the nation, meaning that they were living in streets, parks, or other locations not meant for human habitation. In 2018, among homeless veterans, California had the nation’s highest share that are unsheltered (67 percent), and among homeless youth, the share that are unsheltered (80 percent) ranked second highest.

(d)As local communities work to house the unsheltered, more people are falling into homelessness. Larger urban areas with high numbers of people experiencing homelessness have reported that more people are falling into homelessness than they are able to house.

(e)In the City of Oakland, for every one person they are able to house, two more are falling into homelessness.

(f)In the County of Los Angeles, despite housing 20,000 homeless people in 2018, for every 133 people housed, 150 fall into homelessness per day.

(g)In the City and County of San Francisco, for every one person they are able to house, three more fall into homelessness.

(h)A growing percentage of the state’s homeless population are seniors who are experiencing homelessness for the first time. Seniors who are on fixed incomes and who are severely rent burdened have no potential for additional income.

(i)Once seniors are homeless, their health quickly deteriorates and they use emergency services at a higher rate and face high mortality rates.

(j)Fifty percent of seniors who are homeless become homeless after 50 years of age.

(k)While comprehensive statewide data is lacking, local surveys indicate that people living on the streets are typically from the surrounding neighborhood. For example, 70 percent of the people experiencing homelessness in the City and County of San Francisco were housed somewhere in the city where they lost housing, while only 8 percent came from out-of-state. In addition, three-quarters of the homeless population of the County of Los Angeles lived in the region before becoming homeless.

(l)About 1,300,000 California renters are considered “extremely low income,” making less than twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) per year.

(m)In many parts of the state, many lower income residents are severely cost burdened, paying over 50 percent of their income toward housing costs. One small financial setback can push these individuals and families into homelessness.

(n)The Legislature has made the following investments in affordable housing and homelessness response:

(1)In 2016, the Legislature passed and the voters approved Proposition 63, known as the Mental Health Services Act, which generates two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) per year for mental health services that can be used for people experiencing homelessness.

(2)In 2017, Senate Bill 2 (Chapter 364 of the Statutes of 2017) established a recording fee for real estate documents that has generated three hundred fifty million dollars ($350,000,000) per year since its creation. Beginning this year, 70 percent of funds from the recording fee go directly to cities and counties to use to address affordable housing and homelessness.

(3)In 2017, the Legislature passed No Place Like Home to authorize the use of two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) in Proposition 63 revenues in bonds for supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals with mental illness.

(4)In 2018, the Legislature passed and the voters approved Proposition 1, which authorized three billion dollars ($3,000,000,000) in general fund bonds to increase the supply of affordable housing around the state.

(5)Local governments have also passed general obligation bonds to fund affordable housing, supportive housing, and emergency shelters:

(A)In 2016, the voters of the City of Los Angeles passed Measure HHH, which authorizes 1.2 billion dollars ($1,200,000,000) to fund the construction of 10,000 supportive housing units.

(B)In 2019, the City and County of San Francisco passed Proposition A, which authorized six hundred million dollars ($600,000,000) to support the creation of affordable housing.

(C)In 2019, the City and County of San Francisco passed Proposition C, which authorizes a tax on gross receipts of business with incomes of fifty million dollars ($50,000,000) or more to fund affordable housing, supportive housing, and legal assistance programs.

(6)The Legislature has also made policy changes to allow for siting and building emergency shelters, affordable housing, and supportive housing:

(A)In 2017, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 35 (Chapter 366 of the Statutes of 2017), which created a streamlined process for housing developments that include a percentage of affordable housing.

(B)In 2018, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 2162 (Chapter 753 of the Statutes of 2018), which established a streamlined process for supportive housing developments.

(C)In 2018, the Legislature authorized five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) for the Homeless Emergency Aid Program to provide local governments with flexible block grant funds to address their immediate homelessness challenges.

(D)In 2019, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 101 (Chapter 159 of the Statutes of 2019), which streamlines navigation centers that provide emergency shelter and services to people experiencing homelessness.

(E)In 2019, the Legislature authorized six hundred fifty million dollars ($650,000,000) for the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention Program one-time block grant that provides local jurisdictions with funds to support regional coordination and expand or develop local capacity to address their immediate homelessness challenges.

(o)State and local government at all levels should be held responsible for responding to homelessness and providing permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness. In order to ensure state and local jurisdictions are making best use of existing resources, and to determine the additional resources needed to substantially reduce unsheltered homelessness in California, the state should work with local communities to determine the appropriate roles of each level of government.

(p)To identify the types and levels of interventions the state currently provides, and to arrive at strategies the state will pursue to solve homelessness, the state must conduct a state gaps analysis. The analysis should include an assessment of existing resources, gaps in interventions needed to solve homelessness, and a financial analysis of the costs of filling those gaps at a state level.

(q)There are few other areas of important public policy where government efforts to achieve a compelling societal objective are voluntary.

(r)The state required the state’s utilities and public agencies to meet a timetable for increasing their use of renewable energy, and the state is achieving dramatic results.

(s)Government at all levels should be obligated to spend existing resources in the most efficient and expeditious manner to reduce homelessness.