Newsom Threatens to Defund CA Counties That Don’t Clear Homeless Encampments

After personally participating in the forced displacement of homeless people in a Los Angeles encampment, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to withhold funding from counties that don’t sufficiently crack down on the unhoused.

Buoyed by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court’s recent City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson ruling — which was welcomed by Newsom and other Democratic leaders like San Francisco Mayor London Breed who filed amicus briefs in the case — the governor issued an executive order last month directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, which have proliferated amid rampant economic inequality and stratospheric housing prices in the nation’s most populous state.

After taking part in a Thursday sweep of an encampment in Mission Hills in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, Newsom declared: “I want to see results… If we don’t see demonstrable results, I’ll start to redirect money.”