From billions in new behavioral health funding to potential changes in federal assistance programs, a series of state and federal policy shifts could reshape California’s response to homelessness, a topic that drew local officials, housing advocates and community stakeholders to the Vacaville Homelessness Roundtable on Wednesday.
Roundtable members heard a presentation on pending legislation regarding homelessness and behavioral health from Paul Yoder of Shaw, Yoder, Antwih, Schmelzer & Lange during the gathering.
Yoder, who said he has been working on the issue for decades, explained that housing for the homeless and behavioral health are often closely tied issues in the legislature given the causes of long-term homelessness for many in the state.
Yoder said Proposition One — a ballot initiative passed in 2024 carrying many of Governor Gavin Newsom’s cornerstone behavioral health initiatives — changed the way that the state funds county behavioral health efforts. $6 billion is supposed to be dispersed by the state on the issue within five years as a result of that initiative, creating tens of thousands of behavioral health beds.
Local homeless advocates Gail Thomson asked if funds will be guaranteed to particular areas, which Yoder said is not the case.
“Everybody gets a fair shot, but there are no required minimums,” he said.
The legislature allocated $900 million towards those issues this year, Yoder said, about $100 million less than recent years. The governor has not agreed to that allocation yet, he said, and amendments can still be passed to the budget for most of the rest of the month.
H.R. 1, also known as President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, will require benefits eligibility to be determined more often, Yoder said, but the state has allocated some funding to support counties in that requirement. Other H.R. 1 impacts will affect homelessness, Yoder said, but may be dealt with in the August session of the legislature with another budget amendment.
In California, Yoder said, taxes are very dependent on personal income taxes, particularly those assessed to high-income earners. As a result, an IPO from SpaceX and a possible IPO from Anthropic could generate more wiggle room for state budget revisions.
“SpaceX going public probably means the state of California will have another $1 billion,” Yoder said.
As a result, Yoder said, the legislature may feel more latitude to spend, and the governor has many more initiatives he would like to see through in his first term in office. Yoder also said he expects another housing bond in the range of $10 billion on the state ballot this fall.
“It probably will have some money in it to help first-time homebuyers,” he said.
Yoder also encouraged stakeholders to research SB 28 by Senator Tom Umberg, who authored the CARE Act. The bill, which would establish baseline standards for drug court and drug treatment programs, is a priority for Umberg and Newsom, both serving the last year of their terms.
“It was recently amended to do a lot of things,” he said.
Yoder said SB 28 could be a significant change for the state’s mental health, drug treatment and homeless housing landscape, all of which are intricately connected.
“All of these things should work together, and a big part of my job is trying to make that more true,” he said.
The roundtable also discussed sober living facilities, including the one proposed for Stonegate Drive last year that garnered significant public backlash from the city council. Skip Thomson said the proposed facility discussed by the council gave other sober living facilities a bad name.
“They are outliers,” he said. “That’s not what most of the providers are like.”
Yoder agreed that sober living facilities are critical for people trying to get clean, and said most of them do not create significant problems for neighbors.
“People who are sober need to be around other people who are sober,” he said.
Councilmember Jeanette Wylie said that a woman living in a sober living facility spoke to her recently about how much the facility changed her life.
“I get calls from both sides, but it was just really rewarding to hear how much it meant to this person,” she said.