BY THE SACRAMENTO BEE EDITORIAL BOARD
Thanks to the housing crisis, California also has the dubious distinction of leading the nation in homelessness. Nearly a quarter of the men, women and children who don’t have a permanent residence live here, increasingly in tents on street corners and often with an untreated mental illness.
Proposition 2 would address that.
The measure would finally let counties use money from Proposition 63 to pay for the construction of permanent housing for homeless people, as long as that housing includes a direct connection to supportive social services. Voters initially approved Proposition 63, commonly known as the Mental Health Services Act, in 2004. It was written by then-Sen. Darrell Steinberg, who after becoming mayor of Sacramento, worked with Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, to get the Legislature to tweak it in 2016 The result was the “No Place Like Home” program, which authorized the use of money from Proposition 63 to finance $2 billion in revenue bonds for programs to alleviate homelessness.
The program has been tied up in the courts ever since. Proposition 2 would end that legal maneuvering once and for all.
For voters, approving this measure should be a no-brainer.
