“I’m a notoriously tough grader, but I would probably give him a B,” said former Congresswoman Katie Porter, who is also a professor at UC Irvine. “I don’t think this has been an easy problem to solve, but I give him a lot of credit for calling attention to the problem.”
There are two honest ways you could grade Newsom: In absolute terms and by his own standards.
In absolute terms, California had an estimated 151,278 homeless people in 2019, just as Newsom took office. In 2024, the most current year available, the number had swelled to more than 187,000, a record high. On top of that, his anti-homelessness programs have cost more than $37 billion.
Spending $37 billion dollars on a 24% increase in homelessness does not seem like B work, Professor Porter.
What about by his own standards? When campaigning, Newsom’s campaign website noted that California had been “managing’ this problem for too long; it’s time to solve it.” He pledged to create a cabinet-level position for homelessness. He never actually made the appointment and later told reporters: “You want to know who’s the homeless czar? I’m the homeless czar in the state of California.” And of course, in a few weeks it will be the five-year anniversary of Newsom pronouncing he will “end family homelessness within five years.”
Newsom didn’t “solve” homelessness and it’s as bad as ever. Giving him a B sounds very generous, but not generous as former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra giving Newsom an A.
“I would say that the governor has made efforts,” said Becerra. “We’ve seen him come down to Los Angeles, actually go out and try to clean some of these streets. On effort, I would give him an A.”
The effort Becerra is referring to was one of Newsom’s most legendary photo ops. It was of him cleaning up garbage from what appears to be a vacated encampment and talking to the workers who would ultimately do the job. It might have been an impactful 12 minutes for the governor before he got all his pictures and left, but unfortunately it did not make much of a dent on the homeless problem.
Billionaire Tom Steyer gave Newsom a B minus, which is more realistic than Porter but still absurdly high. San José Mayor Matt Mahan gave a nuanced answer that most closely resembled reality.
Citing some of Newsom’s signature policies, like CARE court, which aimed to get mentally ill people off the streets and into treatment, and Prop 1, a $6.4 billion bond to fund mental health services, Mahan gave Newsom a B for effort.
It’s easy to see where Mahan is coming from when viewed through a Democratic lens. Newsom did take large swings — but it’s hard to say he ever got on base.
Newsom’s CARE court, like so many Newsom initiatives, suffered not from a lack of imagination or funding, but from a lack of implementation. As of late last year, around $160 billion had been spent on fewer than 550 people receiving treatment.
That’s a terrible return on investment.
Mahan did acknowledge that solving homelessness is not just the responsibility of the governor and gave a D on implementation for “us all.” California is a sprawling mess of 58 counties, and any statewide effort on an issue like homelessness requires coordination that just might not be entirely possible. But that only emphasizes the absurdity of Newsom’s top-down approach.
In Newsom’s defense, he believes that there will be a 9% drop in “unsheltered homelessness,” which, if true, could be a step in the right direction. Time will tell, but Newsom certainly has his doubters.
But whether or not Newsom is correct about the 9% drop is sort of irrelevant. Up to this point, Newsom’s efforts on homelessness have been a failure by any objective measure. He has not made meaningful progress, despite billions in funding and all the promises in the world.
If some of Newsom’s potential replacements cannot spot failure when they see it, the state’s homeless may be in for at least four more long years.
Matt Fleming is Pacific Research Institute’s Communications Director and Policy Fellow.