I’ve covered the homeless industrial complex here several times, both here in Austin and in California. Now California itself has done an audit on its homeless programs, only to find billion unaccounted for.
Exactly how much is California spending to combat homelessness — and is it working?
It turns out, no one knows. That’s the result of a much-anticipated statewide audit released Tuesday, which calls into question the state’s ability to track and analyze its spending on homelessness services.
The state doesn’t have current information on the ongoing costs and results of its homelessness programs because the agency tasked with gathering that data — the California Interagency Council on Homelessness — has analyzed no spending past 2021, according to the report by State Auditor Grant Parks. Three of the five state programs the audit analyzed — including the state’s main homelessness funding source — didn’t even produce enough data for Parks to determine whether they were effective or not.
The audit also analyzed homelessness services in San Jose and San Diego, finding both cities failed to thoroughly account for their spending or measure the success of many of their programs.
“The lack of transparency in our current approach to homelessness is pretty frightening,” said Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Republican from Folsom who co-authored the request for the audit.
To the Democrats running the program, that “lack of transparency” is a feature, not a bug.
That means state policymakers have little data to go on when they make funding decisions related to what has become one of California’s most dire challenges.
“The State Auditor’s findings highlight the significant progress made in recent years to address homelessness at the state level, including the completion of a statewide assessment of homelessness programs,” the Interagency Council on Homelessness wrote in an emailed statement. “But it also underscores a need to continue to hold local governments accountable, who are primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness.”
As the homelessness crisis has intensified, California under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership allocated an unprecedented $24 billion to address homelessness and housing during the last five fiscal years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Nine state agencies administered more than 30 programs aimed at preventing or reducing homelessness. Some of those programs did such a poor job tracking their outcomes that it’s impossible to tell if they’ve been successful, according to the audit, which marks the first such large-scale accounting of the state’s homelessness spending.
The report evaluated five state homelessness programs and found two “likely” are cost-effective. Newsom’s signature Homekey program helps cities and counties turn hotels and other buildings into homeless housing at an average cost of $144,000 per unit (in the program’s first round), compared to the $380,000-$570,000 it would cost for new construction. The CalWORKS Housing Support Program, which gives financial help to families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, also saves the state money because it’s much cheaper to help someone stay housed than it is to help them find housing once they become homeless.
The auditor found the CalWORKS program spent an average of $12,000-$22,000 per household, while a single chronically homeless person can cost taxpayers as much as $50,000 per year.
Funny how Democrats are always willing to spend more to help drug-addicted transients than many taxpaying citizens make in a year.
But for three other programs, the state hasn’t collected enough data for the auditor to make an assessment: the State Rental Assistance Program (which helped people pay rent and other expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic), the Encampment Resolution Fund (a program Newsom launched to help cities clean up specific encampments) and the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program (the state’s main source of general homeless funding, also known as HHAP).
“Fundamentally, the audit depicts a bit of a data desert,” Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from Santa Clara County who joined Hoover in asking for the audit, said during a media call.
For example, nearly one-third of people who left placements funded by the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program left for “unknown” destinations, according to the auditor’s analysis of round-one funding in Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties. That ambiguous data makes it impossible to tell if the program has been successful, the auditor wrote. Even so, the state authorized billions of dollars for four additional rounds of funding.
I’m sure the programs are considered a “success” by Democrats because they provide a giant bucket to dole out graft and fraud to the leftwing activists working in the Homeless Industrial Complex.
But I have a deep suspicion that things are even worse than we think. Remember the effort to recall Newsom, and how Democrats from across the country sprang immediately to his aid? At the time, Scott Adams said that protecting Newsom was “the top process in the system.” I suspect that California’s homeless programs are not just a channel for graft and fraud to left-wing activists in California, but a way to rake off money directly to Democratic Party campaigns and coffers nationwide. (Though certainly not the only source. Remember how $850 million in the hands of New York City Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife just sort of magically disappeared?)
If Trump wins in November, a law should be passed allowing federal audits of state social programs that accept federal block grants. Money from the American taxpayer is being siphoned off, and we deserve to know where.
Tags: Budget, California, Crime, Democrats, fraud, Gavin Newsom, homeless, San Diego, San Jose, Social Justice Warriors, Welfare State
Look… The whole “homeless” thing? It’s graft, pure and simple. The activists are looting the treasury, paying themselves huge salaries and building bureaucratic empires while doing nothing to actually address the problems. If anything, they’re doing everything they can to make them worse, because that nets them and their “system” more money from the treasury.
At some point, the general public is going to recognize this for what it is, and once they decide that their own compassion has been weaponized to beggar them, while making the enablers rich beyond measure? Things are going to change.
Time was, if you were to openly shit on an American street, on an American sidewalk, in broad daylight? The cops would come, beat your ass, haul you off to jail, and you’d likely never see the light of day again, were you a repeat offender. If there weren’t cops? Do that in some rural town, where the only law is inherent in the people? Odds are pretty good your next place of, residence would be a nice, deep mine shaft. The old-timers didn’t play, didn’t have “compassion” for the indigent alky or drug user. For good damn reason… It’s only recently that we lost our damn minds and got cozened into this current state of siege by the “homeless”.
People lose the capacity for “compassion” once the slack gets pulled out of the line. Knowingly or not, the “advocates for the homeless” are setting the stage for wholesale elimination of their clients, one way or another. I can see people deciding that they’re tired of not being able to use the parks they pay for with their taxes and all the rest. When they’ve gotten good and fed up? Observe what happens; it won’t be pretty.
“It turns out, no one knows.”
Oh, I think we know it’s not working. In fact, I think we know it’s making the problem worse.
The “homeless” problem is a lot like the deal with what they called “broken windows policing” back in Guilani’s day in New York City.
You see an indigent drug/alcohol abuser laying in the doorway, shitting in the street? And nothing is done to them, or about the issue?
All of a sudden, you find that you have more of that behavior. Why? Because you just modeled and demonstrated that it was OK. So, now that you’ve done that, more people are going to go down that path, because hey, why not?
As well, it just encourages more and more people to do the same thing openly, because a lot of these freaks get off on scaring the normies. Fact of life, that… The transgressional like to transgress, and when they see others getting away with it, they have to escalate and join in.
I don’t know what the actual “homeless” percentages are, of people legitimately “down on their luck” and without shelter, but I’ll feel very safe in telling you that the vast majority of these creatures are not “that sort of homeless”: They are simply drug and alcohol abusers with mental problems, and would probably be a lot better off if they were just warehoused somewhere and encouraged to either get help or take up even more life-shortening vices if they’re not going to.
You can’t fix “f*cked in the head” from the outside, and if the individual who is in that status won’t do it? Too bad, so sad…
In 1970, with a population of 203 million, the United States had 471,451 individuals in psychiatric inpatient and residential care.
In 2020, with a population of 331 million, the United States had 121,366 individuals in psychiatric inpatient and residential care.
“Trends in Psychiatric Inpatient Capacity, United States and Each State, 1970 to 2018”
Ted Lutterman
National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute, Inc. (NRI)
https://www.nasmhpd.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/Trends-in-Psychiatric-Inpatient-Capacity_United-States%20_1970-2018_NASMHPD-2.pdf
Look in the pockets of politicians and people running NGOs.
I’m sure it will show up.
[…] businesses in Angola, and Hershey, Cuba: The sweetest ghost town in Cuba BattleSwarm: Billions Disappear Into Black Hole Of California Homeless Programs, Samsung Snags $6.4 Billion For Texas Fabs, Australian Muslim Stabs Priest, Yelling “Allahu […]