LOS ANGELES — Social media posts alleging that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing an imminent “removal notice” over Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis are ricocheting across the internet, but the claim is largely a mash-up of real political pressure, genuine oversight alarms, and a misunderstanding of what “removal” can legally mean for a sitting governor.

There is no public record of a formal “removal notice” that would automatically force Newsom out of office. In California, removing a governor midterm happens through a recall election process—one that requires a validated petition and a massive signature threshold—rather than a single document that triggers removal. The California Secretary of State’s page tracking current recall efforts lists none at this time.

Still, the political heat Newsom faces on homelessness is real—and it is being fueled by a widening accountability push around how billions of dollars have been spent across the state’s largest city and county.

Audits, federal scrutiny, and a system under the microscope
The most concrete development is not a “removal notice,” but an expanding scrutiny of homelessness spending in Los Angeles. A court-ordered independent assessment and related reporting have described deep gaps in tracking and oversight tied to city-funded homelessness programs, making it difficult to connect spending to outcomes and to verify whether contracted services were delivered as billed.

That audit-driven pressure has spilled into politics. In March 2025, the Associated Press reported that Los Angeles officials moved to take more direct control of homelessness spending, citing audits that found reckless spending and poor transparency at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), a joint city-county agency that oversees a major slice of regional funding.

Within weeks, federal law enforcement signaled that the issue had escalated beyond local governance. In April 2025, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced a Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force covering seven Southern California counties, explicitly aimed at investigating fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption involving homelessness funds. The IRS Criminal Investigation division publicized the task force announcement, underscoring the seriousness of the federal posture.

For critics, that sequence—scathing audits followed by a federal task force—has become the backbone of a broader narrative sometimes labeled online as a “Homeless Industrial Complex”: a suggestion that a web of agencies and contractors profits while the crisis persists. The phrase is political, not a formal legal finding, but it is gaining traction as oversight reports highlight vulnerabilities in the system.

Where Newsom fits in—and where he doesn’t
The governor does not run Los Angeles city or county homelessness programs day-to-day. But Newsom is a central political target because the state pours substantial funding into homelessness response, and because California is home to a large share of the nation’s unhoused population. A California State Auditor report in 2024 examined the state’s homelessness funding and the way effectiveness is monitored, reflecting growing bipartisan concern about outcomes and accountability.

At the same time, Newsom has tried to sharpen the state’s posture on visible encampments. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision expanded local authority to enforce anti-camping rules, Newsom issued an executive order in July 2024 directing state agencies to adopt policies to clear encampments on state property and urging local governments to act.

That “removal” language—about removing encampments—appears to be one source of confusion behind viral posts implying that a “removal notice” was issued against Newsom. In reality, the widely reported “removal” action from Newsom’s office concerned encampments, not his own tenure.

The recall reality behind “removal” rumors
The second source of confusion is the recall process itself. A recall attempt against Newsom launched in 2025, according to Ballotpedia, but it failed to gather anywhere near the required signatures. The Secretary of State’s published recall calendar documents how recall petitions proceed administratively, but those filings are not the same as an automatic removal order.

California has been through this before: voters rejected a major recall effort against Newsom in 2021, a high-profile contest that underscored how difficult it is to remove a governor absent broad, cross-partisan momentum.

A scandal story, a governance story, and what comes next
The emerging picture is less a single scandal detonating in a cinematic “gotcha” moment, and more an accelerating collision of governance failures, public frustration, and political ambition.

Audits and investigative bodies are pushing for cleaner accounting and tighter contract controls. City and county leaders are debating whether LAHSA should be reshaped or bypassed. Federal prosecutors and investigators are signaling they are willing to bring criminal cases if evidence supports it.

For Newsom, the risk is political as much as legal: homelessness remains a defining issue for California’s brand, and for any governor with national aspirations, the perception of disorder—paired with questions about where the money went—can be as damaging as any formal allegation.

But the internet’s “removal notice” storyline gets the mechanics wrong. The pressure on homelessness policy is rising. The oversight scrutiny is intensifying. Yet “removal” of a governor in California is a long, rules-bound process—one that, at least for now, is not formally underway.