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In a catastrophic miscalculation that exposes his continued attachment to failure, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 255 on Oct. 1. It was a bipartisan measure designed to expand access to recovery housing for homeless individuals struggling with substance use disorders.
His veto comes at a time when California’s homeless can least afford more failure.
AB 255, authored by Assembly member Matt Haney, would have allowed up to 10% of state homelessness funds to support abstinence-based recovery housing. These programs integrate shelter with sobriety requirements, accountability and supportive services that help people reclaim stability. Newsom dismissed the bill as “unnecessary,” insisting that current guidelines already permit sober housing and warning against “duplicative” categories.
His reasoning rings hollow.
At the heart of the failure is a refusal to recognize who we are serving. Roughly 80% of the homeless suffer from the diseases of mental illness and/or addiction. Many also struggle with anosognosia – a brain-based condition that results in a deficit of self-awareness, meaning they don’t realize how sick they are.
And that’s what makes Housing First’s requirement of voluntary service engagement tragically unworkable. A 14-year Boston study makes this clear: Nearly half of the housed individuals died within five years, and only 36% remained housed after year five.
Recovery housing – the kind AB 255 sought to expand – offers something fundamentally different: community, accountability and hope.
Those trying to get sober stand the best chance of doing so when housed alongside others striving for the same goal. Isolation in permanent housing without sobriety requirements flies in the face of what frontline providers know works. By surrounding people with peers who are also pursuing recovery, and by building environments where sobriety is non-negotiable, recovery housing gives people a real path forward – toward stability, employment and independence.
None of the men, women or children living in tents or under bridges aspired to this life. Many arrived here through trauma, addiction, mental illness and/or generational poverty.
By vetoing AB 255 for the second year in a row, Newsom chose ideology over compassion, oppression over prosperity. Instead of offering pathways to dignity and restoration, he consigns those too sick to choose for themselves to their fate; they’re left to continue to come apart on the streets or languish in low-barrier, chaos-ridden shelters while they wait for permanent housing that rarely comes.
California is home to approximately 30% of the nation’s homeless population and nearly half of its unsheltered homelessness. Meeting this crisis requires courage to innovate, belief in recovery and respect for human potential. AB 255 was a balanced, modest step that could have complemented Housing First while giving desperate people the chance to heal.
Disguised as administrative prudence, Newsom’s veto of AB 255 was, in reality, a profound moral failure. Shame on him for standing in the way of recovery, restoration and hope.
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