Housing first has been the guiding force in California’s homeless strategy since 2016.

It seems, on the surface, to make sense as a way to help reduce the ranks of the homeless.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie doesn’t dismiss the concept in its entirety. It’s just that there are other avenues that get more effective results. One, in particularly, is known as “recovery housing.” It operates on one simplistic principle: Those who are homeless and have an addiction need to be in an environment that supports their efforts to stay clean.

The people addressing the homeless on the front line in San Francisco understand the importance of such housing. Mixing addicts with recovering addicts is like tossing a burning torch into a barrel of jet fuel. It’s not a question of whether it is going to explode but how much damage the explosion will do.

A wise person might think it is not a good thing to light such a fire especially when the collateral damage takes out the group of homeless addicts with the best chance of getting off the streets.

The group? The homeless committed to a program to address their addictions. They have the highest chance of getting off the street and eventually being able to support their selves.

That is why Lurie teamed up with Assemblyman Matt Haney, a Democrat who represents San Francisco to craft legislation allowing local jurisdictions to commit up to 10 percent of homeless funding from the state on recovery-focused housing.

The California Legislature agreed it was a solid move. They did so unanimously. That meant every Democrat and Republican believed cities and counties should have the flexibility to use state funds with abstinence focused housing programs.

Governor Gavin Newsom disagreed. He vetoed the legislation. His reason? Try not to laugh. The governor said it would establish a “duplicative and costly new statutory category.”

That “costly new category” happens to have a higher success rate at getting addicts off the streets rather than simply “housing first.”

Then there is the little detail that the state has nearly the dozen different state housing programs that Newsom has never made it a goal to reduce over duplicity concerns.

There is clearly more at stake than helping homeless addicts off the streets of San Francisco’s and other California cities in a fairly effective manner by getting them into abstinence programs as a condition of being housed.

Newsom wants to stand in front of the 2028 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles on the closing night as the party’s nominee. To do that, he must do what presidential hopefuls in either party have to do to secure the nomination and appeal to their party’s base.

In the case of addressing homeless, the holy grail of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is housing first. That means no conditions are placed on access to housing such as giving up drugs and alcohol in exchange for taxpayers footing the bill. The hope is they will enter a treatment program. San Francisco and other cities in California have discovered the hard way that is rarely what happens.

And mixing addicts with those trying to shake their addiction creates too much of a temptation in a dedicated homeless housing project.

It also creates a safety issue for the recovering addicts that are homeless as well as for the homeless that aren’t substance abusers.

Too bad Newsom at this juncture in his political career does not have a 100 percent California First outlook instead of trying to posture himself for the national stage.

Ironically, it almost seems Newsom is misreading the proverbial political tea leaves.

San Francisco, and other California cities that wrote the progressive playbook, have been slowly but surely adjusting how they address homeless issues.

One of the nation’s initial housing first strategies in effect since 2016 has had dismal results. Newsom has admitted as much in recent years as he has sharply admonished cities and counties for failing to make enough headway after being sent billions on state tax dollars.

The blue cities of California are not seeking what President Trump wants. What Trump wants – based on an executive order issued several months ago – is for federal agencies to end support of housing first policies that “deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency.” That means any federal dollars spent must go to housing programs where the homeless are required to participate in mental health or addiction treatment.

That is not what 120 members of the California Legislature or San Francisco Mayor Lurie are asking. They just want 10 percent of the billions Newsom’s administration has forked over to cities and counties by the truckload to go to sober homeless housing.

Such a thing would never fly in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, or New York. You could have said that about San Francisco a few years ago.

But perhaps the city where the drug culture mushroomed during the 1966 Summer of Love that led to San Francisco being seen as the Promised Land for many that became homeless on its streets has evolved.

San Francisco isn’t channeling Peoria nor should any Californian on either side of the great political divide expect — or want — the city to do so.

The point is all that San Francisco wants to do is be able to put more resources into homeless housing initiatives that have a higher rate of delivering on the goal to get people off the streets and on the path to being as self-sufficient as possible.

There never was a push to be given carte blanche to get rid of housing first programs.

What there is, is a mayor who has come across a program that has been making effective headway in reducing the ranks of the homeless in his city.

And there are 120 duly elected men and women – mostly Democrats – along with Republicans, who want to empower Lurie and other mayors to up their respective games to tackle California’s homeless problem that is the worst in the nation.

Yet, Newsom doesn’t share that vision.

—  This column is the opinion of Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Courier or 209 Multimedia. He may be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com