HOMELESSNESS I’ll start with two key, and recent moments, on homelessness.  The first was in 2023 when the Sacramento DA threatened to prosecute city officials for failing to do their job on homelessness, allowing encampments to flourish, many blocking public sidewalks.  Without prosecuting anyone, the DA used the power of his voice, to force city leaders to stop flapping their gums and actually do their job.  Next, in the fall of 2024, Governor Gavin Newsome accused some city leaders of failing to address homelessness with the money they had already received, and he threatened to pull funding if the failures continued.  The governor was still frustrated in 2025, when he said: “I want to see results,” and repeated threats to cut funding. So, you can understand my frustration and distrust on how homelessness is being handled.  Some smart and compassionate people have worked on homeless issues for forty years in Sacramento, and they haven’t cracked the problem.  So, I am not going to tell you I’m smarter than all of them and I have the answer, but I do believe we have failed to do the best we can with what we have.  It appears we keep throwing more and more money at this problem without requiring common-sense accountability from recipients and service providers.  With the supreme court clarifying cities can take enforcement action on public camping, we must switch to a firmer stance.  This is a real opportunity to give people real help through tough-love measures, strict accountability, and a mandatory sobriety approach (more to come).