A view of a future state-funded tiny home site on Stockton Boulevard in Sacramento, Calif. on May 20, 2024.Kate Wolffe/CapRadio
It turns out, the Stockton Boulevard site is the only one the state will actually deliver. The state Department of General Services told CapRadio that after discussions with the other jurisdictions, it was decided the “cleanest path forward” would be to cut a check for the tiny homes, and they could buy the units at a reduced rate.
In LA and San Diego, the projects are still in their respective planning stages. In San Jose, the state’s money will pay for a little over half of a 200-unit tiny home site city leaders are hoping to open in July 2025.
Local leaders were reluctant to call out the governor for overpromising and under-delivering.
“I am not going to fault the governor for trying something new and taking some time to figure it out,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. “Unfortunately, the incentive in government is that you're punished when you make a mistake and nobody gives you credit when you try something new.”
In October, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he relates to Newsom’s style: “You put out aggressive goals, and that's the right thing to do,” he said. “It'll happen faster because you put out aggressive goals, then if you just say well, you know, ‘it'll happen when it'll happen.’”
Niki Jones, director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, said leaders need to be more responsible with their messaging.
“You do sort of see a pattern of broken promises when it comes to projects like this,” she said. “For me, I'm not surprised, but for people whose lives are on the line, there is a lot more invested in the completion of these projects.”
According to the 2022 Point-in-Time Count, about 9,300 people are unhoused in Sacramento. All together, there are an additional 63,000 homeless people in San Jose, LA, and San Diego county, according to those jurisdictions.
The state told CapRadio that Sacramento was allotted $23.3 million for 350 tiny homes, and the Stockton Boulevard project is estimated to cost around $22.5 million. The state says it agreed to pay for the Stockton Boulevard site, and will give the remainder of the money to Sacramento, with the understanding local government would fund the building of the second location.
Those remaining homes are slated to be part of a larger project on Watt Avenue that the county hopes to open at the end of 2025. It’s not yet clear who will be eligible to live in the units, although some city leaders have suggested people living in certain nearby encampments will be prioritized.
In areas like San Jose, leaders are increasingly utilizing tiny homes as a solution to the region’s homelessness woes. Mayor Mahan says 70% of people who have ever entered one of the city’s 1,500 units remain housed, and about 50% moved into permanent housing.
Mahan says the real issue now is getting enough money to continue to operate these sites, especially as state and local governments face budget deficits.
“Interim or transitional housing can work extremely effectively at ending homelessness if we have enough of it and we have the services that transform people's lives,” he said. “That, to me, is the really big question mark here.”
Editor's Note: This story was updated to clarify how the state and local jurisdictions determined how funding would be spent on the tiny homes sites.