"Newsom said Assembly Bill 255, which would have allowed cities to use up to 10% of their state funds to pay for "recovery housing," was unnecessary. That's because using state funds for sober housing is already allowed, the governor said. He said "recent guidance" makes that clear. That was a big surprise to Assemblymember Matt Haney, who had spent the past two years working on the bill Newsom was now saying had been moot all along."
"When CalMatters asked about the "recent guidance" that allows the state to fund sober housing, the governor's office sent a link to a 20-page document. No one CalMatters spoke to had ever seen that document before. Neither had Haney, anyone in his office, or the other stakeholders involved in his bill, including the service providers trying to build more sober housing, he said."
""I think it's a terrible bureaucratic failure," Haney said of the lack of communication. Having the state and the Legislature work together, rather than on separate parallel policies, would have saved everyone time and resources, he said. "Why didn't anybody say anything over the course of two years," Haney asked, "not just to me, but to the cities, counties and providers who desperately wanted to open these beds?""
Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 255, saying recent guidance already allows cities to use up to 10% of state funds for recovery housing. Assemblymember Matt Haney and service providers were surprised because they believed California's housing-first policy prevented state funds from supporting sober housing. The governor's office provided a 20-page guidance document dated July 2025 that had not been published online until Oct. 2, the day after the veto. Haney called the delay a bureaucratic failure and said better coordination between state agencies and the Legislature would have saved time and resources. The California Interagency Council on Homelessness placed responsibility on Haney's office for not reaching out.
Read at San Jose Inside
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