Gov. Gavin Newsom Oct. 29, the California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council or HCFC released the application for $50 million in funding for the brand-new Encampment Resolution Grant program. These funds will be available on a competitive basis to local governments that commit to addressing specific, persistent encampments by using these resources to provide pathways to permanent housing for individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
Created in the 2021-22 state budget, the program provides targeted grants to fund selected proposals submitted by eligible cities, counties and continuums of care or CoCs.
The $50 million Encampment Resolution Grant program is a part of Gov. Newsom’s broader $12 billion homeless package, which includes $2 billion in flexible homelessness aid directly to local governments, and a $5.8 billion expansion of the Homekey program. All of these funds come with strong accountability and planning requirements that the State of California has ever had for homelessness spending.
Investments to address homelessness will provide housing and treatment for more than 44,000 individuals. In addition, the Governor created a new $1.1 billion Clean California program, which provides matching grants to local governments to assist them in their efforts to address encampments and restore public rights-of-way.
HCFC designed the program to fund projects across the state that:
Prioritize the most unsafe and/or persistent encampments around the state, per the Governor’s direction to focus on high priority encampments that pose the greatest threat to health and safety.
Provide services for people in those encampments to address the immediate crisis of unsheltered homelessness and provide a path to permanent housing.
Support the sustainable restoration of public spaces to their intended uses while safeguarding the needs of unhoused people seeking shelter.
Applications for the competitive grants are due Dec. 31, and HCFC will announce awards for the first projects in the spring of 2022.