‘Gimme Shelter’: Sacramento plans to give homeless residents the right to housing

Over the past few years, California governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the state’s homelessness problem, but progress has been hard to see.

A new poll by the Los Angeles Business Council Institute in cooperation with The Times, found that 79% of Los Angeles County voters believe that homelessness problems have gotten worse recently. The poll also reflected exasperation among county voters that few solutions seem to be working.

On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” we discuss an ambitious plan in the city of Sacramento to provide residents with a legal right to housing. We also dig deeper into the poll results and talk about state efforts to clear encampments near freeways.

Our guest is Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the author of the housing proposal.

“Gimme Shelter,”a biweekly podcast that looks at why it’s so expensive to live in California and what the state can do about it, features Liam Dillon, who covers housing affordability issues for the Los Angeles Times, and Manuela Tobías, housing reporter for CalMatters.

You can subscribe to “Gimme Shelter” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Soundcloud and Google Podcasts.