FEMA Will Help Get 15,000 Homeless Californians Into Hotels, Newsom Says

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that California has secured nearly 7,000 hotel and motel rooms to house sick and vulnerable homeless Californians during the coronavirus pandemic – and that the federal government will pay 75% of the cost.

The ultimate goal, Newsom said in his daily press briefing, is to procure 15,000 rooms in counties across California, with options to extend the leases beyond this immediate crisis or even buy the buildings in some cases. So far, Newsom said, 869 homeless people are in hotel or motel rooms and 6,877 rooms have been identified and secured by the state and counties so far.

"What we want to do is relieve the stress in our shelter system so we can separate individuals and ultimately, again, relieve the impact on our medical care delivery system," Newsom said outside a Sacramento motel that is already housing sick and vulnerable homeless people.

Framing the state's massive homeless problem as "the crisis that pre-dated the current crisis in the state of California," Newsom acknowledged that this new effort – dubbed Project Roomkey – won't go as far as some homeless advocates demanded, because it limits who is eligible for the rooms that FEMA is helping pay for.

FEMA's program, he said, focuses "specifically on individual homeless populations that have been exposed to the virus, that specifically are deemed high risk – that would be our seniors out in the streets and sidewalks, in encampments and in tents and those that have tested positive for COVID-19."

That means healthy, younger unhoused people will not be able to get a room under this program in a state with an estimated 150,000 unhoused people.

As for advocates that say everyone should be housed?

"They're right," Newsom said. "We recognize 'good enough' never is. But I'll tell you, I don't know another state that's gotten close to 7,000 housing units just in a few weeks that has an agreement – none do – with FEMA to get reimbursed. And now a real process and protocol that's a bottom-up, county-by-county [effort] to begin to triage individuals and move them quickly and effectively and safely in an orderly way into hotel rooms. And I'm very proud of that."

Newsom said the state will pay for the remaining 25% of hotel costs with $800 million in state funds already appropriated to tackle the homelessness crisis — including $150 million approved by lawmakers just a few weeks ago.

Speaking after Newsom, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg noted that just weeks ago, the governor used his State of the State address to highlight the homeless problem and create a task force of officials to come up with recommendations. Steinberg chairs that task force.

"Much of our work was centered on the idea that maybe it ought to be required to bring people indoors, not just be an option," Steinberg said, noting that there was a recognition that it could take years to do that.

"And now, less than eight weeks after that State of the State address, the COVID crisis has given us together an unprecedented opportunity to move up that timeline in a most appropriate and aggressive way," he said. "Homelessness was a crisis before COVID-19. It is a heightened crisis during this epidemic. And if we do our part now, it could be less of a crisis as we come out of this. That is the incredible opportunity we all have together during this most difficult time."

Newsom said people living in hotels and motels will get other services as well, including cleaning, laundry, security and support staff. And he announced that celebrity Chef José Andrés’s nonprofit World Central Kitchen will provide three meals a day to some Project Roomkey hotels.