California has spent $20 billion trying to get homeless people off the streets and the numbers got worse.
Now the Democrats who want Gavin Newsom's job just handed him a B.
Steve Hilton said out loud what every Californian already knows.
The Grades That Broke the Internet
Steve Hilton – former Fox News host and the only adult in the room at Wednesday's California gubernatorial debate – didn't mince words when asked to grade Newsom's homelessness performance.
"My goodness, of course it's an F," Hilton said.
He's right.
California has roughly 10% of the United States population.
It has roughly 50% of the country's homeless.
That's not a policy failure. That's a catastrophe.
But the Democrats sharing that stage couldn't bring themselves to say it.
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Katie Porter – the congresswoman who built her brand on being a "notoriously tough grader" – gave Newsom a B.
Tom Steyer, the billionaire who wants to be your next governor, gave him a B-minus.
Former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra – a man who ran the federal health apparatus – gave Newsom an A for "effort."
An A for effort.
You don't have to be a policy expert to understand what that means.
It means they know the results are indefensible.
So they graded the attempt.
What $20 Billion Bought California
When Newsom took office in January 2019, California had approximately 108,400 homeless people on any given night.
By 2024, that number had climbed to 161,400.
That's a 49% increase – while California was spending like it had already solved the problem.
$20 billion.
That's what the state poured into homeless initiatives between 2019 and 2025, according to the California Budget and Policy Center.
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Not $2 billion. Not $5 billion. Twenty billion dollars.
And the streets got worse.
San Francisco became such a disaster that Ron DeSantis held up a map of the city during a 2023 debate – a map tracking over 270,000 reported instances of human feces on the streets.
The internet called it the "poop map."
Democrats called it a right-wing attack.
The homeless people living in it called it Tuesday.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco – the other Republican on that debate stage – said something that every sane person already knows but California's political class refuses to admit.
"We are not dealing with homeless, so stop calling it homeless,” he said. “It has nothing to do with homes."
"These people are suffering from drug and alcohol abuse and mental illness."
He's right too.
You cannot spend your way out of a mental health and fentanyl crisis by building more units and handing out more services – not when the underlying addictions and illnesses go untreated.
California tried.
For six years. With $20 billion.
And 53,000 more people ended up on the streets.
What This Debate Actually Revealed
The real story out of Wednesday's debate isn't the grades.
It's why the Democrats gave them.
Newsom hasn't endorsed anyone yet.
Every Democrat on that stage is competing for his blessing – his donor network, his political machine, his national connections.
Giving Newsom an F isn't just an honest assessment.
It's political suicide in a California Democratic primary.
So Porter says B. Steyer says B-minus. Becerra says A for effort.
And in doing so, they told you everything you need to know about what a Democrat-run California will look like for the next four years.
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The same people who watched $20 billion disappear into the homeless industrial complex – the nonprofits, the consultants, the service providers who built careers on never solving the problem – are now running to take Newsom's seat.
And they're already defending his record.
Hilton put it simply: "It shames our state."
He's the only one on that stage who said what Californians actually believe.
California holds its gubernatorial primary June 2. The top two vote-getters advance to the November 3 general election.
If Wednesday's debate is any preview, the Democrats vying to replace Newsom aren't running against his legacy.
They're running to protect it.
And 53,000 more Californians will pay the price.
Sources:
- Leo Briceno, "Dems jockeying for Newsom endorsement give passing grades on issue that ignited 'poop map' crisis," Fox News, April 23, 2026.
- California State Senate Housing Committee, Homeless Population Data, 2024.
- California Budget and Policy Center, Homeless Initiative Spending Report, 2025.
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Annual Homeless Assessment Report, 2019.