Homeless drug addict at Broadway Sacramento Post Office. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
Newsom Dumps Another $145 Million in Homelessness Funding as Fraud, Waste, and Empty Shelters Plague His Record
Under Governor Newsom’s reign, nearly $200,000 to $206,000 in taxpayer money has been spent per homeless individual
By Megan Barth, April 8, 2026 3:13 pm
Governor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that his administration is handing local governments an additional $145.4 million in taxpayer dollars to “drive forward our progress reducing homelessness,” touting “real results in real time” and wildly claiming the state has already transitioned more than 100,000 Californians out of homelessness.
My administration is providing an additional $145.4 million to local governments across the state to drive forward our progress reducing homelessness.
We're seeing real results in real time — and we're not taking our foot off the gas.
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) April 8, 2026
The latest slush fund targets counties including Lake, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Solano, Yolo, and Yuba under the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) grants.
Despite Newsom’s rosy spin and unfounded claims of modest declines in unsheltered homelessness, the brutal reality remains: California still suffers approximately 180,000–187,000 homeless individuals — accounting for roughly one-quarter to nearly one-third of the entire nation’s homeless population, even though the state represents only about 12 percent of U.S. residents.
In Los Angeles County alone, the 2025 count revealed 72,308 people experiencing homelessness (including 43,699 in the city of Los Angeles), while San Francisco’s 2024 Point-in-Time Count documented 8,323 people experiencing homelessness, with over 4,300 unsheltered. Visible despair, encampments, and human suffering continue to dominate streets from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Even in the very counties now receiving this fresh $145.4 million handout, the crisis rages on. Recent Point-in-Time counts show a combined total well over 28,000–30,000 people still experiencing homelessness across Lake, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Solano, Yolo, and Yuba counties.
Dividing this latest $145.4 million by roughly 30,000 homeless individuals in those counties equals a staggering $4,847 per person — nearly $4,850 in new taxpayer dollars dumped on each individual in this single announcement alone.
Adding this latest $145.4 million to the estimated $37 billion already flushed into the Homelessness Industrial Complex since 2019 brings the grand total to over $37.145 billion. Even spreading that obscene sum across California’s roughly 180,000–187,000 homeless individuals works out to a staggering $198,636 to $206,361 per person — nearly $200,000 to $206,000 in taxpayer money spent per homeless individual, with shockingly little to show for it except waste, fraud, empty shelters, and ever-growing street encampments.
Yet even as Newsom celebrates incremental progress and promises stronger accountability, California Globe reporting has repeatedly exposed how billions in prior homelessness spending under his watch have been marred by waste, fraud, abuse, and outright failure to deliver results for the state’s most vulnerable.
As the Globe previously reported, CalDOGE recently uncovered that Newsom’s flagship Project Homekey program poured $745 million into homeless housing projects in Los Angeles—only for many of the facilities to sit empty while the crisis persists on the streets.
That audit comes on the heels of the governor’s own 2026 budget proposal, which the Globe detailed as creating yet more new homelessness agencies and ramping up spending even further—despite the state squandering an estimated $25–$37 billion since 2019 with little measurable success and a documented rise in the unhoused population.
Apparently $37 billion wasn’t enough to hide the utter failure of his policies.
State Auditor reports have flagged multiple Newsom administration agencies as “high-risk” for waste, fraud, and abuse in homelessness and related housing programs, a designation reserved for the most egregious cases of mismanagement.
Federal prosecutors have also stepped in, filing charges in multiple alleged misuse-of-funds schemes tied directly to Newsom-era homelessness dollars.
Nonprofits contracted to house and feed the unhoused have been caught diverting funds for lavish lifestyles, luxury purchases, and personal gain — exposing just how wide open the floodgates of abuse have been left under this governor’s negligent oversight.
Gavin Newsom’s approach isn’t just failing — it is actively enabling a parasitic industry that enriches consultants, politically-connected nonprofits, and fraudsters while California’s most vulnerable are left to rot on the streets and law-abiding citizens endure the daily chaos of unchecked encampments, crime, health hazards, and filth in cities from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
With California still home to roughly one-third of the nation’s unhoused population—and encampments remaining a fixture in cities from San Francisco to Los Angeles—taxpayers are left wondering how many more hundreds of millions must be poured into programs before real, verifiable outcomes replace the endless cycle of announcements, spending, and excuses.
The California Globe will continue tracking these funds and holding Sacramento accountable.
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I have stated this for the last 6 years, if Newsom wanted to solve this, it would have been solved! Either he is just so dense or corrupt.
Billions of our tax dollars WASTED. Leaving poor souls on the street. This is so criminal on so many levels. Newsom and his fellow democrats are modern day Robber Barrons. No one is immune from the thievery. They abuse the needy and the taxpayer!
Poor souls? Please; sheltered folks in LA are returning to the streets by choice.
Newsom and his cronies havesuccessfully created a subculture of homeless now in place and pursuant to the eradication of private sector for profit businesses.
The homeless engulfing every major metro area including San Diego.
All have ignored the telling edicts issues by the California Supreme Court thus the transition of the middle class Calif neighborhoods to gulags is well underway: What the hell anyone think the operatives had in mind when the homeless masses were created and nurtured? Not one damn politician Republicans or Democrat speaks of job creation as a remedy to the growing homeless amoung us. The charter of the creeps were forced to respect are in their entirety are working to lower us all to serfdom.
For those who work and own homes the support for the homeless coming out of your walls!
Yes, poor souls. A majority of the homeless are tortured souls, they suffer from mental illness and drug addiction. The drug dealers keep them well supplied. Housing first is a dismal failure. These afflictions need to be addressed before housing or jobs are offered.
So you think a guy/girl rolling in their own excrement, drugged out can hold down a job?🙄
One thing I agree with is the creation of a homeless culture that is ignored so the Homeless Industrial Complex lives on.
They also need Jesus in their lives to stay on a good path. Drugs and alcohol are no substitute for God’s love and redemption.
Grace House in Sacramento is a model program.
They’re not taking their foot off the gas of the programs that we pay for, and their incompetence enables thieves to loot because the State Controller doesn’t know the difference between a debit and a credit, let alone how to conduct an audit!
Herb Morgan will fix that….
This is the definition of insanity on display right here. Now we have tangible proof that the people who should be housed in these institutions are the liberal progressive Democrat politicians because there will not be different results. ANOTHER 145 million? They are insane.
Let’s be honest. The homeless are exploited by Democrats for a quick source of votes used to swing elections in their favor through bogus registrations or to sign petitions swinging public opinion. Equally important is their value in using them as an excuse to redistribute taxpayer money to political allies.
That’s why democrats can never “solve” the homeless crisis- it’s not in their interests.
we need just a handful of influential people with a large under-40 audience to drive home the impact of this fraud by personalizing it: the One party rule of the Democrat mafia has stolen and wasted 435 billion+. That’s 17k each from the approx 25 million CA taxpayers. let’s start a tiktok trend. what would you buy with $17k? A new car? New furniture? vote GOP up and down the ticket and let’s start cracking down on this fraud and refunding the taxpayers as we strip away all of this waste!
I like your thinking CaliGirl😉
That is a demographic that is will continue to be negatively impacted by supermajority democrat policy!
Doesn’t gavin really mean “we’re not taking the foot off the gas prices”?
An unfortunate turn of phrase….
The CaLifornia Globe always has Great News Articles~!
But, why does The California Globe Not Let a Photo-Image of the article be posted when we share these great articles~? This loses a lot of “views” online~!
Just as we’ve recently been shown empty day care facilities with outlandish monetary support, those who own buildings earmarked for homeless shelters stand empty as well. Some under the guise of being remodeled or rehabilitated and many just empty lots, the money goes into the developer pockets, marginal repairs performed by no-bid contracts and NO MONITORING, NO PERFORMANCE-BASED RELEASE OF FUNDS and NO ACCOUNTING.
Just a wink and a political promise
Governance is not a strong suit for this absolute loser. Unfortunately for us incompetence and a willingness to waste money is two of his strongest suits.