Gavin Newsom confronted at press conference about missing $24bn spent on tackling homelessness

California’s governor Gavin Newsom was confronted while being probed at a press conference over the state’s spending of $24 billion to tackle homelessness.

Mr Newson led a conference on Friday announcing that California’s budget deficit is at least $45 billion and proposed various spending cuts to state worker jobs, education programs and health services.

He also proposed reducing funding for homelessness and housing initiatives by nearly $1.2 billion, including $474 million from an anti-foreclosure program to preserve existing affordable housing.

Despite the big budget announcements and slashes on spending, one reporter at the conference did not allow the governor to skim over the topic of homelessness in the state.

In a state audit, released in early April, it was revealed that California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over the past five years, yet did not consistently track how exactly the huge sum of money helped the homeless crisis.

Angela Hart, of KFF Health News, asked two questions: whether he felt his administration did enough to determine if the money was well spent and if he was worried whether public opinion over spending so much on the homelessness program has soured given the lack of progress from all the billions of dollars spent.

Mr Newsom replied with a lengthy answer about localism, and how it is “difficult at state level” to deal with these issues when local governments have different strategies, but touched on how they have incorporated “accountability plans” into theirHousing Assistance Program (HAP).

He added that the audit did not “surprise” him and said that he acknowledged they needed to do more “not just in the homeless bucket but also the mental health/homelessness bucket”.

However,