By Jayden Park
California’s push to clear homeless encampments off state highways picked up three new partners this week. On July 28, 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom’s office announced that Ontario, San Bernardino, and San Diego had signed Encampment Delegated Maintenance Agreements with the California Department of Transportation, bringing the statewide total to 13 city and county partnerships that let local crews clean up encampments on Caltrans property in exchange for state reimbursement.
The agreements let city public works, police, and housing staff go onto Caltrans’ right-of-way to remove tents, debris, and vegetation overgrowth without waiting on Caltrans’ crews to do it themselves. In exchange, the state reimburses the city for eligible costs, provided the work follows state reporting rules meant to track how the money is spent. Newsom’s office framed the deals as proof that “state and local coordination” can move faster than either government working alone, while Caltrans Director Dina El-Tawansy said the arrangement pairs the department’s operational standards with cities’ knowledge of their own streets.
The dollar figures are modest by state budget standards. According to reporting from Hey SoCal, Ontario’s agreement was executed June 1 for $400,000, San Bernardino’s was signed July 17 for $400,000, and San Diego’s, signed July 16, totals $400,000 for fiscal year 2025–26 and $800,000 the following year. Riverside’s earlier two-year pilot reimburses the city up to $50,000 per quarter, with a maximum of $400,000 over the life of the agreement. Unlike state programs such as HHAP or Homekey+, which help pay for housing and shelter, these agreements only cover the costs of clearing and maintaining encampment sites after they’ve been selected for cleanup.
Ontario, San Bernardino, and San Diego join 10 cities and counties that already had agreements in place, including San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Monica, Santa Ana, Riverside, Fresno, Claremont, Commerce, Paramount, and Santa Fe Springs. Since July 2021, Caltrans has removed nearly 26,500 encampments statewide and collected roughly 457,000 cubic yards of litter and debris from its right-of-way, the governor’s office said.
The Delegated Maintenance Agreements are one piece of a multiyear escalation. In mid-2024, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling cleared the way for cities to enforce public camping bans, Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to clear encampments on state property and pushed local governments to adopt similar rules. He later proposed a model camping ordinance for cities to copy and, in 2025, launched the State Action for Facilitation on Encampments (SAFE) Task Force, a rotating operation that pairs Caltrans cleanups with on-site outreach in California’s 10 largest cities. A September 2025 SAFE operation in Los Angeles, run alongside Mayor Karen Bass’s Inside Safe program, cleared an encampment along the 110 Freeway after outreach teams connected the roughly 40 people living there with shelter, according to the governor’s office.
That approach hasn’t been without controversy. As the Daily Journal has reported, Newsom has used state funding to encourage cities to clear encampments, while putting pressure on those that don’t. Homelessness advocates have criticized the strategy, and at least one federal lawsuit claims that some encampment sweeps may violate people’s due process rights. Critics, including members of the Inland Region Housing Justice Coalition, argue that encampment bans and removals treat a housing shortage as a policing problem and “deepen poverty” rather than solve it, according to Hey SoCal’s coverage. The state counters that removals are paired with outreach and shelter offers, and that encampments posing health or safety risks are the priority for cleanup regardless of the broader debate.
Newsom’s office says the new agreements build on California’s progress in reducing unsheltered homelessness. According to 2025 federal data, the state saw its largest drop in 16 years, with 8,391 fewer people living unsheltered—a 6.8% decrease, more than double the national decline. In 2026, San Bernardino’s point-in-time count found 1,172 people experiencing homelessness, including 737 who were unsheltered. San Diego reported 5,958 people experiencing homelessness, with 3,132 living unsheltered. It’s still too early to know whether these new agreements will significantly change those numbers, since they pay for encampment cleanup rather than creating new shelter or housing.
For now, the expansion signals that Newsom’s office intends to keep growing the delegated-maintenance model as a lower-cost, faster-moving complement to the state’s larger housing and shelter investments, even as questions about the legality and long-term effectiveness of encampment removals remain unresolved in the courts and in local debate.
References:
Office of Governor Gavin Newsom. (2026, July 28). Governor Newsom expands statewide partnerships with additional cities to clean up encampments on highways [Press release]. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/07/28/governor-newsom-expands-statewide-partnerships-with-additional-cities-to-clean-up-encampments-on-highways/
Taglieri, J. (2026, July 28). State funds highway encampment removals in 3 more SoCal cities. Hey SoCal. https://heysocal.com/2026/07/28/state-funds-highway-encampment-removals-in-3-more-socal-cities/
Office of Governor Gavin Newsom. (2025, September 23). Governor Newsom’s SAFE Task Force clears Los Angeles encampment, partners with city to connect people with shelter and care [Press release]. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/23/governor-newsoms-safe-task-force-clears-los-angeles-encampment-partners-with-city-to-connect-people-with-shelter-and-care/
Daily Journal. (2025, May). Newsom ties funds to homeless camp cleanup, legality challenged. Daily Journal. https://www.dailyjournal.com/article/385410-newsom-ties-funds-to-homeless-camp-cleanup-legality-challenged