The City of Riverside continues to seek solutions to address the impact of the state’s homeless crisis on the quality of life in our city, while recognizing that at the heart of this issue are people and families that are struggling to survive. Governor Newsom announced last week that he is proposing $1.4B in the 2020-21 state budget to address homelessness, housing affordability and mental health. This morning the Governor visited Riverside to learn more about our proactive collaboration between government, non-profit, faith and private partners to move residents through the continuum of care and to discuss some of the challenges we are experiencing. During this visit, he met with homeless and formerly homeless individuals. While we certainly have large challenges ahead of us, we are grateful for the Governor’s interest in Riverside and are pleased to see Riverside recognized for the pieces of our homeless strategy that are working well. We recognize that there are other aspects of our strategy that need to be adjusted and we are committed to continual improvement. As your Mayor, one of my top priorities has been - and will continue to be - a relentless pursuit of external and private funding to provide relief to our neighbors without homes and to protect local funding for quality of life issues in Riverside. Our relationship with the Governor and Big City Mayors yielded just under $7M in funding this year alone. I would like to thank Governor Newsom for his work to address homelessness, housing affordability and mental health and for investing time in our city; we are in a state of emergency, and he is responding with urgency. I look forward to working with him, and any other stakeholders willing to partner to address this complex public policy and public health issue moving forward.