Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has admitted that California’s homelessness crisis is “an embarrassment” but tried to blame Republicans for creating the situation.
The Golden State is facing an opioid-fueled vagrancy epidemic, with cities like San Francisco and San Diego under siege with encampments and businesses closing stores.
Newsom was grilled on the subject by Fox News host Sean Hannity after the final blow to downtown San Francisco, when Westfield stopped paying mortgage payments for his massive mall due to crime and tank sales.
California’s homeless rate increased 13 percent during Newsom’s time as governor government statistics with an increase of 6.8 percent between 2019 and 2020, and another 6 percent between 2020 and 2022, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Newsom told Hannity, “This state has made no headway on homelessness in the past two decades, because housing costs are too high, our regulatory thicket is too problematic, localism has had too much influence — meaning people are pushing back locally against new housing. start and build up.’
Newsom said he takes responsibility for California’s growing homelessness crisis
However, he added that he had only been in office for four years and that was not enough time to “make up for the fact that we had a historic number of homeless people in 2005 under a Republican administration.”
The governor said, “I own this. I take responsibility for this’ when faced with the shocking rates of homelessness in California.
Hannity noted that California currently reports more than 170,000 homeless people in the state, to which Newsom replied, “I just took 68,000 people off the streets last year, and by the way, that’s PolitiFact’d.” 68,000.
“I have a $15.3 billion homeless plan. When I got here, it was half a billion dollars. The state of California was not involved in the homeless problem. We got involved.
Add: ‘We hold cities and provinces accountable. I’m suing cities that don’t produce homes. We actually have a 15-year high of new housing starts in the state of California. We really see that programs deliver real results, but I want to be accountable.’
San Francisco saw a staggering 41 percent increase in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year, when fentanyl ravaged the city’s homeless population.
In the California coastal hub, 200 people died from drug overdoses between January and March, compared to 142 deaths in 2022, according to data from the city’s coroner.
Hotels and other businesses flee the dilapidated streets with almost 23 percent lower revenue per available room than in 2019, reported the Wall Street Journal.
California currently reports more than 170,000 homeless people
Newsom said he had no time as governor to “make up for the fact that in 2005 we had a historic number of homeless people under a Republican administration.”
Westfield Mall has stopped making mortgage payments on its massive mall due to crime and tank sales
Westfield stopped paying a $558 million loan and returns it to their lender, who will appoint a trustee
Newsom said he has a homeless plan worth $15.3 billion, up from the half-billion dollars allocated when he arrived in 2019
Newsom acknowledged that businesses were leaving and that the state’s cities were plagued by security problems, but insisted, “I love this state. I don’t like what happens to encampments, I don’t like what happens to streets and sidewalks.
“I don’t like bashing my old town San Francisco. Whole Foods closed down one business, but that was a bad location to begin with. They’re opening a new one,” referring to the closure of the fancy San Francisco supermarket just a year after it opened.
Whole Foods opened a new “flagship” location on Trinity Place in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood in March 2022, hoping to revive visitor numbers after two years of draconian COVID restrictions that placed area businesses seriously affected.
But a Whole Foods spokesperson said the store closed in April due to concerns about staff safety.
“We are closing only our Trinity location for now,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “If we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in store, we will evaluate a reopening of our Trinity location.”
The retail crisis worsened in May when Nordstrom announced the impending closures of its flagship store and Nordstrom Rack.
In a statement, the company made a diplomatic reference to the “drastically” changed “dynamics” of downtown San Francisco, “affecting customer foot traffic…and our ability to operate successfully.”
Hotel consultancy AVE CEO Michelle Russo told the Journal that security concerns have made San Francisco a no-go area for convention organizers. Russo said the impact of a lack of convention will be felt for some time, as most organizers book a space years in advance.
For this reason, “hotels today aren’t worth as much as they were in San Francisco before Covid,” Russo said.