Council Applauds New Task Force to End Homeless Encampments, Bring People Indoors

Photo Credit: CA Governor’s Office

For the past several years, the Bay Area Council has worked intensively to promote legislation and policies focused on ending unsheltered homelessness in California. So, we were thrilled to hear Gov. Newsom announce the formation of the State Action for Facilitation on Encampments (SAFE) Task Force continuing his administration’s concerted efforts to end the state’s homelessness crisis. The SAFE Task Force will focus on aggressively removing dangerous and unhealthy encampments on state rights-of-way in 10 large cities and providing homeless individuals and families with the shelter, housing and other social services they need to stabilize their lives. 

In a statement applauding Gov Newsom’s action, Council CEO Jim Wunderman said: “Street encampments are the most visible manifestations of our decades long failure to address California’s housing and homelessness crises. For far too long we have allowed encampments to grow in our cities while telling ourselves that there are no solutions to this problem and that the camps were somehow inevitable or the best that we can do. We applaud Gov. Newsom’s bold leadership to end this nightmare, restore order to our public spaces and help get people the shelter, housing and services they need. We were aligned with Governor Newsom in 2024 and filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court in the Grants Pass case to put an end to street camping and we are aligned with him today in support of this task force. Failure is no longer an option, and it is long past time that we move our homeless neighbors indoors and get them the help that they need.” 

In related news, legislation (AB 255, Haney) the Council is sponsoring with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and the Salvation Army to allow the use of state funding to support drug-free recovery housing last week cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee and is advancing to the full Senate for a vote. This landmark bill represents a major shift from the state’s past “housing first” policy. Unfortunately, legislation (SB 606, Becker) we were sponsoring to expand the use of interim housing failed to advance this year. We were proud to join San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, Dignity Moves and the New California Coalition in sponsoring this legislation, and we will be exploring options for bringing it back in the future. 

To engage in the Council’s homelessness policy work, please contact Senior Vice President Adrian Covert.