Tallahassee, FL: While introducing measures to limit where homeless individuals can obtain shelter in his own state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has condemned California’s homeless situation.
An yearly report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development shows that in 2023, more than half of the nation’s homeless people lived in Florida and three other states. Last year, 15,482 individuals in Florida were found without shelter.
At a news conference on Wednesday, DeSantis said that he had signed House Bill 1365, which prohibits the unlicensed use of public spaces for overnight stays.
Under the new law, municipalities can set aside areas for overnight stays or camping, but only if those spots are up to code and used for a full calendar year.
Among the states with the highest concentrations of homeless people, DeSantis singled out California during the press conference. As an example of the worsening of Florida’s homelessness problem, he brought up the homeless encampments on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.
There are a lot of families who have said that they had to leave certain neighborhoods because drug usage was so common there. “Just imagine a huge encampment showing up, like what happens on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles—an overwhelming number of homeless people,” he said. You can’t build solid communities in that way. Good government does not work like that. Society isn’t going to benefit from that.
Even though San Francisco is bigger than Jacksonville, Florida, the city’s homeless problem cost taxpayers $1.1 billion in 2022. According to the governor, that amounts to over 80% of Jacksonville’s total city budget. “So, this is just something that is not sustainable and that model has absolutely failed.”
There will be an extra 710 homes built in seven counties in California—Fresno, Los Angeles, Modesto, Sacramento, San Buenaventura, San Diego, and Visalia—thanks to $179.7 million in funding announced in October by Governor Gavin Newsom in an effort to reduce homelessness.
With the installation of these apartments, the statewide initiative Homekey will have constructed 13,484 houses for individuals experiencing homelessness or at danger of homelessness.
The problem of homelessness in the state has been building for a long time. Despite the fact that there is still much to accomplish, Newsom stated in a press release that his administration is “challenging the status quo” by proposing novel approaches to the problem of homelessness in California.
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Among the additional provisions of HB 1365 that were detailed by DeSantis in Wednesday’s X post were provisions to guarantee that homeless shelters offer alternatives to drug addiction and mental health counseling when they reach capacity and the establishment of enforcement mechanisms to guarantee that local governments are following the new law.