Governor Gavin Newsom visited Riverside today as part of his weeklong tour addressing homelessness across California.
The visit was to Riverside’s Access Center, where homeless people in Riverside can access a wide range of services including housing placement and employment opportunities.
Newsom was joined by Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey, Assemblymember Jose Medina, and state Senator Richard Roth.
Here’s Governor Newsom on homelessness in California.
Newsom: “This is a crisis, this is unacceptable, everybody has the right to be angry and concerned about the state of the state of California as it relates to the issue of homelessness. I see it, we recognize the sense of urgency that we all must advance at every level of government. This is no longer an issue for the city of Riverside to solve, this is no longer an issue for the county to solve, this is no longer an issue for the region to solve. The state of California and the federal government and all levels of government have a responsibility to do more and do better.”
The governor also brought up the money last year’s budget brought to address homelessness specifically in the Riverside area.
Newsom: “Here's the good news. We passed a budget last year and now quite literally, when I say now, over the course of the next few weeks, 650 million dollars of emergency grants are going out to cities throughout this state. So 13 million dollars just in this region, this county and this city are being distributed because of the work we did last year. It's an unprecedented amount of money supporting the cause of addressing street homelessness and more broadly, preventing homelessness.”
In his state budget proposal released Friday, Newsom also announced more than $1 billion in homeless response funding.
