A decade after California voters softened penalties for drug possession, a new state-backed analysis says that decision likely pushed thousands more people onto the streets. Researchers estimate Proposition 47 contributed to roughly 7,000 additional Californians experiencing unsheltered homelessness between 2015 and 2019, a period when the state’s overall homelessness rate was already climbing sharply.
The finding comes from the Public Policy Institute of California, which released a report examining the long-term effects of the 2014 ballot measure, as first detailed by Mountain View Voice. Prop. 47, passed by California voters in 2014, lowered some drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and was credited at the time with easing prison overcrowding. But PPIC researchers now say the measure also contributed to a roughly 10 percent increase in street homelessness between 2015 and 2019, and accounted for about 20 percent of the state’s overall rise in unsheltered homelessness during that stretch, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development figures cited in the report.
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