Sacramento Report: What’s Caltrans Got to Do with It, Anyway?

I’ve touched on the housing crisis from two different angles in recent weeks: supply, from the vantage point of the Pacific coast, and the distribution of homelessness services to cities.

This week, I wanted to take a closer look at how, despite homelessness being a hallmark priority of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, efforts in the Legislature to make it easier for cities to tackle it were sidelined this year and could be in the next year, thanks to a tight budget.

What Cities Are Doing About Encampments

From San Diego to San Francisco, major cities are continuing to crack down on homeless encampments after Newsom cut state funding to local governments in half from last year.

Typically when this conversation comes up among people steeped in the topic, the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, is part of it. That’s because the most difficult homeless encampments for cities to clear are typically ones on land owned by the state, beneath freeways and on highways, which is controlled by Caltrans.

And it became more relevant after Newsom in May issued a guideline of sorts for cities to clear more sites near roads as part of a broader monthslong push to clear streets after a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision made it legal for cities to ban sleeping in public.

Two months later, San Diego became one of the first cities to follow the governor’s guidance and form its own agreement with Caltrans, which allows it to clear encampment debris along a five-mile stretch of freeways near downtown and be reimbursed up to $400,000 for the cleanups.

As I mentioned in my conversation with Mayor Todd Gloria a few weeks ago, local officials have largely touted it as a success, as nearly 200 sites have been cleared and officials have placed more than 40 people in shelters. However, people often quickly move back to cleared areas due to limited shelter space.

Still, officials say it’s been so successful that they supported a bill, Senate Bill 569, for other places to adopt similar agreements that would give city workers the authority to clear camps on state property. After all, it helped the city plug the running faucet of hundreds of calls workers were receiving per week for encampment removals, according to state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat of Encinitas, who authored the bill.

Another Proposal Bites the Dust (For Now)

The League of California Cities, a nonprofit that advocates for local governments, worked in lockstep with the city on the legislation.

But not long after it was introduced, Caltrans estimated that it could “create unknown significant cost pressures, potentially in the tens of millions annually,” to implement some of the changes, like hiring personnel and reimbursing cities for the cleanups, according to a committee report.

“As we were moving through appropriations last year, SB 569 got tagged with a really high price tag,” said Caroline Grinder, a lobbyist with the League. It stalled after passing the Senate’s spending committee because of the projected cost and is on a two-year track to be amended again next year.

Grinder and other supporters have a strategy to amend the bill language and put forward a pressure campaign to pass the bill alongside spending the $500 million that was restored for homelessness services next year.

“I was really surprised,” Blakespear said of the bill sputtering out despite the governor’s pleas to urgently remove encampments. 

Local governments mostly do not want to deal with physically removing people. Nor does Caltrans, which sees the task of clearing homeless encampments as out of its wheelhouse.

“Their mission is roads. So they don’t see this as being central to what they do,” Blakespear said.

For some cities, an agreement with Caltrans is seen as the last hurdle to addressing homelessness on the streets, but many advocates have criticized the partnership for things including how sweeps are executed and cleanup services are reimbursed, or not, by the state.

Yet San Diego city workers too have criticized the encampment sweeps as a temporary fix and question their effectiveness, pointing out that people will often return to roads or highways under the jurisdiction of Caltrans because they know it will take weeks, if not months, for them to be cleared again.

“Everything is a concern,” Blakespear said of the criticism. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also deal with people living on an off-ramp on the freeway.” 

Caltrans, which is part of the executive branch, has not taken a position on SB 569.

The quiet pitter-patter of one bill’s failure illuminates how — even in local governments’ enthusiasm to provide a solution -– the appetite to spend more to address homelessness has degraded.

Forecasts of the state budget from the Legislative Analyst’s Office show the state is expected to face an even bigger budget shortfall next year, which could make it more difficult for local governments to receive additional funding as the governor stares down the $18 billion deficit.

What I’m Reading Now

A KPBS investigation finds that several San Diego County police agencies have access to over 100 undisclosed private license plate readers.

inewsource breaks that a San Diego transportation agency removed references to diversity, equity and inclusion on its website following a directive from the federal government.

The San Francisco Standard reports how pregnant women do not have abortion protections at Catholic health facilities across the state.

Thanks again for reading the Sacramento Report. If you have any tips or story ideas for my newsletter, please give me a shout: nadia@voiceofsandiego.org.

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