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Governor Gavin Newsom announced October 26 that California's Homekey+ program has now funded more than 2,900 permanent supportive homes for vulnerable residents, including veterans, crossing the $1 billion award mark with five new projects totaling 329 homes and $115.2 million in awards. The program is funded by Proposition 1, the $6.4 billion Behavioral Health Bond voters approved in 2024.
The milestone comes as state officials point to California's first year-over-year reduction in unsheltered homelessness in fifteen years, and the largest numerical reduction of any state, a 6.8 percent decline.
Since launching in 2024, Homekey+ has awarded funding for 2,905 permanent supportive homes, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, which administers the program. Of those, 828 homes are reserved for veterans, who face a disproportionate rate of homelessness.
The five awards announced October 26 add 329 homes across five communities, with 168 of those homes reserved for California veterans. Together they carry $115.2 million in Homekey+ funding.
The program's funding structure splits by population. Approximately $1.03 billion in Proposition 1 bond funds were made available through Homekey+ to cities, counties, housing authorities, and tribal entities for permanent supportive housing projects serving veterans. Another $1.11 billion was made available for projects serving all target populations, combining Proposition 1 bond funds with Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program dollars.
Proposition 1, approved by California voters in 2024, restructured the state's behavioral health funding and authorized the $6.4 billion bond that powers Homekey+. The measure paired housing money with treatment capacity, reflecting the administration's argument that homelessness and untreated behavioral health conditions must be addressed together. Statewide, California has awarded $6.6 billion in behavioral health infrastructure funding to support 535 new facilities, 9,570 beds, and 44,863 treatment slots.
The October 26 announcement also follows Newsom's signature on a new package of housing and homelessness legislation aimed at accelerating construction, cutting red tape, expanding housing options, and connecting homeless individuals with recovery-oriented housing. Annual residential construction in the state has increased 50 percent since 2018, according to the administration.
The October 26 awards reach from the far north of the state to Los Angeles:
In Yuba City, the city and Habitat for Humanity of Yuba/Sutter, Inc. will create 138 new homes across four buildings with an award of just under $40.6 million. The Merriment Village Apartments Phase II project reserves 70 units for veterans facing homelessness with a behavioral health challenge, with supportive services and property management on site.
In San Francisco, the city and county, partnering with Swords to Plowshares, will rehabilitate an existing 63-unit apartment building with a nearly $18.7 million award, creating 44 homes with supportive services for veterans facing homelessness with a behavioral health challenge.
In Riverside County, the county and Wakeland Housing and Development Corporation receive gap funding to build the 80-unit Camino Terrace with a $16.2 million award. Thirty-five units are designated for the Homekey+ population, including 28 for veterans.
In Lompoc, the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara, partnering with Surf Development Company and Thompson Housing, LLC, receives gap funding to build the 49-unit Brisa Encina community with a nearly $20.9 million award, with 19 homes reserved for veterans experiencing homelessness with a behavioral health challenge.
In Los Angeles County, the county and Hope the Mission will acquire and rehabilitate a former motel into the 62-unit Casa Bella development with an $18.8 million award. The project includes 61 permanent supportive homes for people experiencing homelessness with a behavioral health challenge, including seven homes for veterans, plus one manager's unit.
"When California voters approved Proposition 1, they made clear that they wanted meaningful action to address homelessness and behavioral health challenges," Newsom said. "We heard them, and we're delivering on that promise, reducing homelessness and providing our most vulnerable residents with the care they need."
"California's significant investments through Homekey+ have funded nearly 3,000 affordable and supportive homes for Californians," said Tomiquia Moss, Secretary of the California Housing and Homelessness Agency. "These Homekey+ units will be a lifeline and the start to a stable future for Californians experiencing homelessness, including veterans."
Lindsey Sin, Secretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs, framed the milestone around the funding threshold: "Reaching the $1 billion mark in Homekey+ awards is a remarkable milestone, but the true measure of this investment is what it means for veterans and their loved ones."
HCD Director Gustavo Velasquez put the two Homekey generations together: "With today's awards, Homekey and Homekey+ have now funded homes that will serve more than 200,000 Californians experiencing the greatest need."
Both generations of the program share a design principle worth noting for capital planners: speed comes from buying or rehabilitating what already exists. The original Homekey program built its record largely on hotels, motels, and apartment conversions, and the two conversion projects in the new round continue that pattern. For jurisdictions with surplus commercial or hospitality stock, the Homekey structure is the working example of conversion-at-scale financing.
For housing authorities and developers watching from other states, the program's pace is as notable as its size. HCD issued the first Homekey+ awards less than six months from the Notice of Funding Availability, with groundbreakings taking place by December 2025. Work on acquisition and rehabilitation projects is often underway less than five months from award, and the state says the first projects are nearing construction completion and lease-up.
That velocity follows the model of the original Homekey program, which since 2019 has created nearly 16,000 interim and permanent homes statewide and served 30,000 people, largely by acquiring and converting existing buildings rather than relying solely on new construction. Two of the five new Homekey+ projects, the San Francisco rehabilitation and the Los Angeles motel conversion, follow that conversion approach.
For property managers and service coordinators who will operate these communities, the model brings familiar PSH disciplines: on-site supportive services, coordinated entry referrals, and income-based rents backed by operating subsidies. The Yuba City project makes the operating model explicit, with supportive services and property management located on site. Managers taking on Homekey+ units should expect the same reporting and accountability expectations that have accompanied the state's recent homelessness funding, including documentation that local partners are meeting their share of housing and service commitments.
Veterans are the through line of this announcement. Nearly a third of the homes in the new awards are reserved for veterans, and CalVet is a named partner in the program's delivery. That pairing of housing agency and veterans agency is itself a model other states have begun to study as they structure their own veteran homelessness initiatives.
What the new round signals for developers and housing authorities is demand and speed together: the state is still clearing awards in months, not years, and the pipeline shows no sign of slowing. Project sponsors holding eligible conversion or new-construction sites should be watching the next Homekey+ NOFA cycle closely.
Prop 1's bond authority and the federal-state partnership structure also give the program unusual insulation from annual appropriations fights, which is one reason sponsors can plan around it even as federal housing funding remains unsettled.
California's claim of progress rests on the most recent federal point-in-time count data, which recorded the state's first year-over-year reduction in unsheltered homelessness in fifteen years and a 6.8 percent decline, the largest numerical reduction of any state. Officials attribute the movement to the cumulative effect of Homekey, Homekey+, encampment resolution programs, and new housing construction rather than to any single intervention.
The state has paired production with enforcement expectations. Since 2021, Caltrans has removed more than 19,000 encampments on state right-of-way, and the Governor's SAFE Task Force, announced in 2025, has conducted encampment resolution work in the state's ten largest cities, connecting residents to shelter. Housing officials emphasize that those operations are paired with offers of shelter and services.
Homekey+ is a state-level answer to a financing problem federal programs do not solve alone: permanent supportive housing needs capital, operating subsidies, and services funding stacked together, and Proposition 1 lets California write that stack from a single bond. When fully awarded, Proposition 1 bonds are estimated to fund 6,800 residential treatment beds and 26,700 outpatient treatment slots for behavioral health alongside the housing.
The need the program targets is documented in the state's announcement: more than 1.2 million California adults live with a serious mental illness, and one in ten residents meet the criteria for a substance use disorder, conditions that greatly increase the odds of homelessness. People with untreated psychosis are ten times more likely to experience homelessness and sixteen times more likely to be incarcerated, according to the state.
Housing authorities are squarely inside the eligible-applicant list, as the Santa Barbara County award shows. For authorities in California, remaining Homekey+ and HHAP funding rounds are a live capital source; for those elsewhere, the program is the largest current test of whether bond-funded, conversion-friendly PSH production can move faster than traditional development pipelines.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced October 26 that California's Homekey+ program has now funded more than 2,900 permanent supportive homes for vulnerable residents, including veterans.
Five new projects totaling 329 homes and $115.2 million in awards pushed the program past the $1 billion award mark.
Homekey+ is funded by Proposition 1, the $6.4 billion Behavioral Health Bond voters approved in 2024.
The milestone comes as state officials point to California's first year-over-year reduction in unsheltered homelessness in fifteen years.
The 6.8 percent decline is the largest numerical reduction recorded by any state.
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