Gavin Newsom's California House of Cards
- Rex Ballard
- Dec 8, 2025
- 4 min read
An Opinion Piece: The views expressed here are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Shasta Unfiltered.
On this very date – December 8, 2025 - Gavin Newsom's office triumphantly announced another $181 million in homelessness grants. While at the same time federal indictments keep coming, the tents keep spreading, and the stolen billions remain unrecovered. California’s governor, a self-styled progressive, who is eyeing the White House in 2028, has spent the last twelve months frantically rewriting his own legacy. After presiding over the largest homelessness explosion in American history, record fraud, and multiple multi-billion-dollar scandals, Newsom suddenly discovered “accountability” in 2025 — but only after federal courts and federal investigators forced his hand.
The timing is too perfect to be coincidence. The toughness is too convenient to be sincere.
California’s Homeless Industrial Complex - $37 Billion Spent, 187,000+ Still on the Streets, Zero State-Level Arrests
Since Gavin Newsom took office in 2019, California has spent over $37 billion on homelessness programs — a figure that includes state, local, and federal dollars funneled through Newsom’s administration. That’s roughly $198,000 for every man, woman, and child living on California’s streets in 2025.
The result? Homelessness hit a record 187,000+ in the most recent counts, with two-thirds completely unsheltered in the nation’s wealthiest state. Los Angeles County alone averages more than 2,000 homeless deaths per year, mostly fentanyl overdoses — a mortality rate 49 times higher than the housed population.
The 2024 state audit was brutal: California spent $24 billion with no meaningful tracking, no ability to measure effectiveness, and no statewide system to even know where the money went. Two of the largest programs were literally un-auditable. Yet for six straight years, Newsom bragged about “transformative investments” while tent cities swallowed entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, and Sacramento.
Only in 2025 — after the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision gave legal cover for encampment clearances, after the Department of Justice launched a dedicated Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force, and after federal arrests began — did Newsom suddenly become the tough guy. He launched his own “task force” in August. He started withholding funds from non-compliant cities. He began more encampment sweeps. Some counties now report modest declines (4–9.5% in certain areas), and Newsom’s press team floods California inboxes with triumphant headlines about new grants and “progress.”
It’s working — in the narrowest, most cynical sense. The visuals are slightly less apocalyptic in a few downtowns. But the overall numbers remain catastrophic, Santa Clara County just recorded its highest count ever, and every bit of real momentum required federal intervention that Newsom spent years fighting.
Most telling of all: every single homelessness fraud arrest in 2025 has been federal. Notable cases:
· October 16, 2025: Cody Holmes, former CFO of Shangri-La Industries (a major affordable housing developer receiving homelessness funds), arrested by federal agents for mail fraud and theft of government funds. Holmes allegedly submitted fake invoices and diverted millions in public homelessness money to personal luxury purchases.
· October 16, 2025: Steven Taylor, a Brentwood real estate executive, indicted on seven counts of bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering for allegedly stealing millions in homelessness grants through fraudulent schemes while using the money for personal gain.
So, now the governor thunders about “accountability”. Yet he never lifted a finger to deliver it when Cody Homes and Steven Taylor were donating funds to Democrat operators who helped push through homeless projects.
The Broader Blue-State Bonfire: A Decade of Grift
Homelessness is only the most visible disaster. The pattern repeats across California’s biggest programs.
High-Speed Rail: Promised at $33 billion in 2008, now the latest estimate is $128+ billion. $23 billion has been spent to date with zero miles of operational track after 17 years. The Trump administration is auditing for waste, fraud, and abuse and pulling federal funds. No arrests. No recoveries. Just endless viaducts in the Central Valley desert.
EDD Unemployment Fraud: Between $20–32 billion stolen during COVID, much of it paid to prisoners and international crime rings while legitimate claimants waited months. California claims ~$6 billion “recovered,” but the real criminal claw backs are a rounding error.
Medi-Cal for Undocumented Immigrants: Now $8.4 billion annually, with hundreds of millions in improper billing exposed. The program expanded dramatically on Newsom’s watch while fraud controls have been non-existent.
EBT/SNAP Skimming: Hundreds of millions stolen from California’s poorest families through card-skimming rings. The Trump administration is now threatening to withhold federal funds over California’s refusal to share data.
And the ultimate embarrassment: in November 2025, Newsom’s own former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, was indicted on federal bank fraud, wire fraud, and corruption charges tied to a Sacramento insider scheme. This wasn’t some rogue staffer — this was Newsom’s inner circle.
Again: federal indictment, not state.
The Final Reckoning
Gavin Newsom wants to be president. He wants America to see him as the competent, compassionate antidote to Trumpism.
But America sees California for what it is:
· 187,000 homeless after $37 billion spent with zero accountability,
· $128 billion ghost train to nowhere,
· $20–32 billion in unemployment theft,
· Newsom’s own ex-chief of staff in federal court.
Newsom, now that he is eyeing the presidency in 2028, is launching initiatives to stem the tide of fraud and corruption. The sudden “tough” streak didn’t exist during his term and to date has yielded only token results. The stolen money is still gone. The grifters faced handcuffs only when federal agents put them on. The modest 2025 progress required efforts that Newsom spent years resisting.
California’s catastrophe is not bad luck. It is the direct result of one-party rule, zero accountability, and a governor who prioritized optics and donor networks over results — until those optics threatened his national future.
Gavin Newsom’s presidential dream doesn’t end in a debate hall. It ends on the sidewalks of LA’s Skid Row, beside half-built rail viaducts, in federal courtrooms where his allies face justice he never delivered, and in the unrecovered billions that vanished while he looked the other way.
The rebrand is too late. The record is permanent. America has seen the California model in action.
And America is never buying it.
