California to ask voters to approve new mental health beds

California Gov. Gavin Newsom's latest plan for the state's homelessness crisis asks voters to fund a major expansion of housing and treatment for residents suffering from mental illness and addiction. Newsom announced Sunday that he will ask allies in the Democratic-controlled Legislature for a measure on the 2024 ballot to authorize funding to build residential facilities where over 10,000 people a year could live and be treated. The plan is the latest by the governor who took office in 2019 vowing to own the issue of homelessness in a state where an estimated 171,000 were unhoused last year.