With homeless populations rising across California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators are including more than $1 billion in the coming year’s state budget to help address the issue.

Though the governor and legislators have agreed on the amount of money to spend, they have yet to figure out how to divide it among big cities, counties and regional agencies that coordinate services for the homeless across the state.

The disagreement over that spending is just one major housing issue still unresolved in the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” we discuss the housing and homelessness spending that made it into the budget and the policies that have yet to be decided, including Newsom’s big push to link state transportation dollars to whether cities and counties plan for enough growth.

Our guest is Mike Neely, a formerly homeless resident who also served on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. We discuss why the county’s homeless population increased 12% over the last year and what to do about it.


“Gimme Shelter,” a biweekly podcast that looks at why it’s so expensive to live in California and what the state can do about it, features Liam Dillon, who covers housing affordability issues for the Los Angeles Times Sacramento bureau, and Matt Levin, data and housing reporter for CALmatters.

You can subscribe to “Gimme Shelter” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Google Play and Overcast.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators are at odds over spending to address homelessness »


liam.dillon@latimes.com

@dillonliam