Name: Gov. Newsom vetoes bill aimed at better tracking millions spent on homelessness
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Gov. Newsom vetoes bill aimed at better tracking millions spent on homelessness

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By | Southern California News GroupCalifornia has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into battling homelessness, and yet the last year.A bill by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills, aimed to better understand how those dollars are spent — and zero in on what works and what doesn’t — by creating a uniform data-collection system that could be used to craft better outcomes. It sailed through the Legislature without a single no vote and landed on the governor’s desk in September with 20 bipartisan co-authors, awaiting the signature that would make it law.On Tuesday, Sept. 29, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it.“My Administration is exploring ways to increase transparency in our homeless assistance programs and improve the efficiency in the delivery of those services to those who most need the help,” Newsom said in his veto message. “This is important work, and we are dedicated to this effort. Unfortunately, the requirements of this measure are duplicative of existing requirements and would create additional, unnecessary data collection costs.”Gabriel was surprised and disappointed by the governor’s veto of . Newsom’s objection that the bill would add data collection costs doesn’t make sense to him.“You’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these programs, but object to spending a couple of hundred thousand to gather data to see if they’re working? A lot of people would agree that’s a prudent and wise investment,” he said.“We didn’t want to do anything duplicative, and we actually said, ‘If you have existing reporting that gives the information we’re seeking, you can submit that,’ ” he said. “We’re trying to determine what are these costs, what are they accomplishing, how do these programs stack up to others? It’s this huge challenge. Once we have some uniform data, we can have a better sense of where to target our money.”According to legislative analyses, the bill would have mandated enhanced accountability and transparency by creating a system of uniform reporting requirements across a broad set of state-funded homelessness programs. That data would have been available to the Legislature, the media and the general public, allowing for stronger oversight of state and local homelessness programs and better insight into the comparative effectiveness of various programs and strategies, allowing officials to better use data to craft policy responses.Comments in a Senate Committee on Human Services analysis flagged the concerns Newsom ultimately expressed: “These programs currently face extensive reporting requirements that in many ways speak to information sought by the author’s office. It is possible that this bill will not result in additional reporting on each of these programs due to provisions allowing funding recipients to utilize existing reports to meet reporting requirements imposed by this bill and to report certain data as unfeasible to collect.”Gabriel vowed to continue the push for stronger accountability and “data-driven policymaking.”There’s extreme frustration in the community, and in the Legislature, about the lack of progress on homelessness, Gabriel said.“People in Los Angeles city and county have voted twice to tax themselves to fix this problem,” he said. “They said, ‘Take more of my money and please, please, do something to help the people suffering on our streets.’ Step one is to get better data on what’s working and what isn’t to ensure that resources are being spent in the most efficient and effective way possible.”New reporting would have been required for those receiving funds from three programs: the homeless services piece of Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs), an enormous, that provides cash aid to supplement household incomes; the , which offers disabled homeless people help applying for benefit programs as well as housing support, and has received $90 million in state and local funding a year over recent years; and pilot programs that allow local governments, health and hospital authorities to integrate care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries “who have been identified as high users of multiple systems and continue to have poor health outcomes.” Many target those with mental illness. The state has invested more than $120 million in the programs.&nbsp;We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.Get Morning Report and other email newslettersFollow UsMost PopularClose

By | Southern California News GroupCalifornia has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into battling homelessness, and yet the last year.A bill by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills, aimed to better understand how those dollars are spent — and zero in on what works and what doesn’t — by creating a uniform data-collection system that could be used to craft better outcomes. It sailed through the Legislature without a single no vote and landed on the governor’s desk in September with 20 bipartisan co-authors, awaiting the signature that would make it law.On Tuesday, Sept. 29, Gov....

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Journalist @SoCalWatchdog, author (The Strangest Song), documentary filmmaker (American Pie), frustrated stand-up comic. tsforza@scng.com

Teri Sforza

Latest Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area news from reporters & columnists at The Mercury News.

Gov. Newsom vetoes bill aimed at better tracking millions spent on homelessness

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