Newsom, Local Leaders Scuffle Over Homelessness Solutions

Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, May 29, 2025…

• California is home to a quarter of the nation’s unhoused population. That’s around 187,000 people. As the state grapples with homelessness, tensions are hitting a high point between Governor Gavin Newsom and local leaders when it comes to funding solutions.
• A family in Bakersfield is facing deportation, despite entering the country legally to obtain care for their young daughter. Lawyers for the family say the 4-year-old girl could die if she’s forced to leave the US.

Governor, Local Leaders Squabble Over Homeless Funds

Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom made his most aggressive salvo yet in an increasingly contentious war on visible homelessness across the Golden State. In an effort to urge more California cities and counties to ban encampments, he released a model ordinance to use as a template for barring camping on public property.

Newsom has criticized cities and counties for not doing enough on homelessness, particularly when it comes to encampments. “Time to do your job. People are dying on their watch. How do people get reelected? Look at these encampments, they’re a disgrace. They’ve been there years and years and years and years. I’ve heard that same rhetoric for years,” he said.

Since 2019, the state’s provided grants for local governments to combat homelessness. But Newsom didn’t include any new homelessness funding in his latest budget proposal. Local leaders said the governor’s finger pointing and withholding of funds will just make the crisis worse.  “One thing’s clear. “If you take that money away, there’ll be more people on our streets,” said Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty.

This funding fight between Newsom and local representatives comes as California faces a $12 billion budget deficit. The Governor and legislature will have to make tough decisions about the final budget ahead of mid-June.

Bakersfield Family’s Deportation Order Puts Girl’s Life-Saving Medication At Risk

A family in Bakersfield is facing deportation, despite entering the country legally to obtain care for their young daughter.

Lawyers said at a press conference on Wednesday that the 4-year-old girl could die if she left the U.S. because she suffers from short-bowel syndrome. The disease requires her to wear an adult-sized backpack that delivers nutrients intravenously – 14 hours a day. This life-saving treatment is only available in the U.S.

The girl’s mother, Deysi Vargas, said deportation would jeopardize her daughter’s life. “If we return back to our county, she would be at the hospital day and night,” Vargas said through an interpreter.

Vargas legally entered the U.S. through humanitarian parole. That was under the Biden administration. But as the Trump administration cracks down on migrants, her parole was revoked.