Newsom Names Humboldt CARE Court Champion, Awards $3.1 Million for Services

Humboldt County was among ten counties Gov. Gavin Newsom named a CARE Court "Champion," and local reporter Isabella Vanderheiden says Humboldt was awarded $3.1 million to expand housing for people experiencing homelessness as part of the administration's March 2 announcement. The designation and the local funding claim come as the state moves to tie CARE Court implementation to measurable referral activity while accelerating housing and behavioral‑health investments.

Newsom delivered the briefing inside an under‑construction wing of Regis Village in Alameda on March 2, 2026, inviting Alameda County Judge Sandra Bean to describe local CARE Court work. At the event Newsom said, "Care and accountability go hand in hand - full stop," and added, "Local leaders have a moral and legal obligation to deliver this transformational tool for those who need it most." State materials released with the briefing framed the actions as new accountability measures for the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment Act and a funding package to expand housing and services.

The administration packaged roughly $291 million in new funding for supportive housing and behavioral health, split in the state's release into $131.8 million in Homekey+ awards and $159 million in Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) Round 6 allocations. The Homekey+ portion is intended to create 443 additional homes with on‑site managers across projects in Stockton, Santa Fe Springs, and the counties of Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Tehama, and Yuba; the HHAP Round 6 money is described as awards to 20 regions. The two line items sum to $290.8 million; outlets and state materials round that to $291 million.

The CARE Court "Champion" label derives from a per‑capita metric: the number of CARE Court petitions received per capita during calendar year 2025, the first full year all 58 counties participated in the CARE Act. The state listed the first cohort of champions as Humboldt, Tuolumne, Marin, Napa, Merced, Sutter, Alameda, Santa Barbara, San Mateo, and Imperial. At the same briefing the state also identified ten underperforming counties to receive targeted support; KSBW reported that list as Monterey, Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Bernardino, Kern, Riverside, Yolo, and Fresno.

CalMatters and other coverage raised limits to the petitions‑per‑capita measure, noting it excludes other program outcomes such as the number of CARE agreements reached, petitions dismissed without treatment, and people who have graduated from CARE Court. CalMatters highlighted that San Diego posted the most graduations last summer (10) while Riverside recorded seven graduations but was placed on the state's "improvement" list, illustrating the mismatch between referral counts and program completion.

Local commentary at the Redheaded Blackbelt framed the "champion" designation as primarily a numbers exercise and cautioned it could obscure weak housing outcomes; the outlet's column wrote, "While it's heartwarming to see Governor Newsom doling out gold stars like a kindergarten teacher to counties like Humboldt... This 'champion' status is just a numbers game." Redheaded Blackbelt also published a 2023 photo caption noting Jacob Rosen of CARE and Commander LaFrance of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office CSET at the Eureka Police Department discussing homelessness outreach and fentanyl use (photo by Ryan Hutson).

Statewide materials circulated with the announcement did not enumerate every county's share of the Homekey+ and HHAP awards; the $3.1 million figure for Humboldt is reported locally by Isabella Vanderheiden and has not yet been confirmed in the Governor's Office press materials provided with the briefing. The state said it updated a public accountability website to show per‑capita petition rates; local officials and service providers in Humboldt will need to confirm how any award is allocated to specific projects and which providers will manage new housing and services.

Beyond the March 2 rollout, the administration linked the $291 million action to Proposition 1 implementation; state projections tied to Proposition 1 estimate that, when fully awarded, the 2024 voter‑approved $6.4 billion bond could create 6,800 residential treatment beds and 26,700 outpatient treatment slots. Humboldt County now moves from designation to implementation questions: which local projects will draw on reported state dollars, how the county will report CARE Court outcomes beyond referrals, and how the state will track whether the champion counties produce the housing and treatment results the governor cited.