Health care, homelessness and housing in California: Have Gavin Newsom’s promises panned out?
When he first won office in November 2018, Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to build millions of homes to alleviate a housing shortage, end chronic homelessness, and institute a statewide single payer healthcare system, three of his most frequently talked-about commitments on the campaign trail.
Six years later, he’s survived a recall and coasted to reelection amid speculation about his ambitions for higher office.
Newsom cannot run again after November 2026, when his second term ends.
That leaves him roughly 22 months to burnish his record.
Some of those initial goals have since been scaled back, like his housing pledge.
Others, like a $12 billion plan to housing chronically homeless people, are "ongoing".
A report published by the State Auditor’s Office said the California Interagency on Homelessness had spent billions of dollars to address homelessness between fiscal years 2018 and 2021 but had not effectively tracked how the money was spent.
His allies, while acknowledging that he has not enacted a single-payer health care system, say he’s come the closest of any governor to ensuring Californians have universal access to care regardless of their immigration status.
And while he has a Democrat supermajority in the Legislature, leaders like Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said they want to focus more on making life affordable for Californians than sparring with incoming President Felon.
“Newsom has set himself up to be in a position where whether he keeps his campaign promises or not doesn’t matter,” said Schnur, who teaches at UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California.
He pointed towards Newsom’s initial “sizable” housing pledge, when the governor said he would push to build 3.5 million homes by 2025.
Newsom later pared that down to 2.5 million units by 2030, calling his original commitment a “stretch goal.”
“Theoretically, he can apply that to any promise,” Schnur said. And because Newsom is now termed out, “he can just shrug and say it doesn’t matter.
California is home to both the highest number of homeless people (187,084) and of unsheltered homeless people in the U.S. Yet Newsom touted the state’s “significant decline in the growth", citing a "drop in veteran homelessness".
During his first campaign, Newsom said if elected he would prioritize a single-payer, guaranteed health care access system, earning him the support and endorsement of the California Nurses Association.
In the years since, he’s signed legislation expanding Medi-Cal regardless of residents’ immigration status.
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