Bramson: With federal support in doubt, California must step up

The Worst Case Housing Needs: 2025 Report to Congress confirms what many communities already feel on the ground: housing instability has become entrenched.

In 2023, more than 8.4 million renter households nationwide were paying more than half their income for rent or living in severely inadequate housing. That figure has barely changed since the pandemic. For regions like Santa Clara County — where housing costs have long outpaced wages — this is not a warning sign. It is daily reality.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget reflects a state navigating fiscal constraints while continuing to prioritize housing and homelessness. The budget preserves major investments and places renewed emphasis on accountability — a reasonable and necessary expectation. But accountability does not exist in the abstract. It exists in communities that have already built systems, invested local dollars and produced measurable results.

Santa Clara County is one of those communities.

Over the past several years, local governments, philanthropy and service providers here have made substantial local investments in housing people who are unhoused, preventing homelessness before it starts and expanding affordable housing development. This work has been deliberate and data-driven. Thousands of people have moved into permanent homes, with more than 1,000 additional units fully funded and moving toward construction. These are not pilot programs. They are durable assets designed to reduce returns to homelessness and stabilize lives.

Investments like the incredible success of the county’s 2016 affordable housing bond, which led to more than 6,000 new affordable homes across the region, are a lasting testament to what we all can accomplish together locally.  

Equally important, Santa Clara County’s homelessness prevention system has demonstrated what accountability actually looks like. Tens of thousands of households at risk of eviction or displacement received targeted assistance — often modest in cost but timely in impact. More than 90% remain stably housed years later. That outcome is not accidental. It reflects early intervention, careful targeting and long-term tracking — exactly the kind of performance public leaders say they want to see.

San Jose provides another proof point. Its expansion of more than 1,000 interim housing options — the largest such expansion on the West Coast — has created urgently needed pathways off the street for people who would otherwise remain unsheltered. Interim housing is not a substitute for permanent homes, but it is a critical bridge, connecting people to services, stability and ultimately housing. Scale matters, and San Jose has shown what decisive local action can accomplish.

Taken together, these efforts form a continuum policymakers often call for, but rarely see fully realized: prevention, interim response and permanent housing aligned and operating at scale. This is accountability made tangible.

And yet, this local progress now faces a serious external threat.

Recent signals from the federal government point to potential reductions or restructuring of homelessness funding, including programs that local systems rely on to sustain permanent housing and services. For Santa Clara County, that uncertainty is not theoretical. Federal dollars support thousands of households in stable housing today. Abrupt cuts or shifts away from evidence-based approaches would not simply slow progress — they would risk reversing it, pushing people back into instability after years of careful investment.

This is where California’s role becomes even more critical.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data makes clear that local systems are operating within a national affordability crisis that no county can solve alone. Nationally, there are fewer than 40 affordable homes for every 100 extremely low-income renters. Even the most efficient local strategies will strain under that imbalance if federal support erodes.

Gov. Newsom has rightly emphasized accountability in homelessness spending. Santa Clara County has delivered it. What accountability now demands is not retrenchment, but reinforcement.

State investment matters more — not less — when federal support is uncertain. It provides stability in planning, protects hard-won gains and ensures that communities that have built effective systems are not punished for doing so. Accountability should be a pathway to sustained partnership, not a pretext for withdrawal.

Budgets reflect priorities. So do backstops.

Santa Clara County has shown what is possible when local leadership, public dollars and private partnership align around clear outcomes. The work is being done. The results are measurable. In a moment when federal commitments are wavering, California has an opportunity — and a responsibility — to match local performance with lasting support.

If accountability is the standard, then Santa Clara County has already met it. The question now is whether the state will meet the moment as well.

San José Spotlight columnist Ray Bramson is the chief operating officer at Destination: Home, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness in Silicon Valley. His columns appear every second Monday of the month. Contact Ray at [email protected] follow @rbramson on X.