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Gov. Jerry Brown is entering his final year in public life riding high in opinion polls and generally praised by government officials. But as the spotlight shifts to a new generation, there has been an increasing focus on the blight of poverty and homelessness under Mr. Brown’s watch — by his fellow Democrats.

Mayor Eric M. Garcetti of Los Angeles was the latest to weigh in, discussing what he said was the absence of state assistance in helping cities deal with the homeless. Mr. Garcetti has come under fire for a major homelessness problem in Los Angeles, the subject of a series of scathing editorials in The Los Angeles Times.

“I love this governor — I think he’s done a tremendous job,” Mr. Garcetti said Wednesday at a luncheon sponsored by the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum in downtown Los Angeles. “But in his last State of the State address, there wasn’t one mention of homelessness. We need the state to step up.”

Over the weekend in San Diego, at a debate of Democratic candidates looking to succeed Mr. Brown as governor, Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor, spoke of California as a state plagued with high poverty, noting that this has happened as government has been controlled by Democrats. “The issue of poverty is the issue of our time,” he said. “As Democrats, we have a unique responsibility to address this issue head on. With all due respect, this happened on our watch. We own this.”