Multiple state agencies spent nearly $24 billion on housing and homeless programs in the first five years of Gavin Newsom’s governorship, but the number of people without homes continued to grow, rising by 20% to more than 180,000 in the most recent federal count in 2023.
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State Auditor Grant Parks cited that stunning level of spending this year in a sharply worded report concluding that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, Newsom’s umbrella agency that’s supposed to coordinate and track state programs, has utterly failed to do so.
Parks said the agency “has not aligned its action plan for addressing homelessness with its statutory goals, nor has it ensured that it collects accurate, complete, and comparable financial and outcome information from homelessness programs. Until Cal ICH takes these critical steps, the state will lack up‑to‑date information that it can use to make data‑driven policy decisions on how to effectively reduce homelessness.”
City and county governments have spent additional billions of dollars on homelessness, which stands at the top of the list of worrisome issues continuously cited by California voters in polls.
If spending of that magnitude — probably $30 billion-plus by now — has not made noteworthy progress on reducing homelessness, one must wonder how much it would cost to provide shelter and necessary support services for every homeless person in the state.
No one in Newsom’s administration or the Legislature has ventured into that analytical territory. As Parks says, state officials don’t even know how well their current programs are working, and until they do, the state cannot chart a comprehensive and realistic plan for ultimate success.
Nevertheless, a report presented to the Los Angeles City Council by the city’s homelessness services agency gives us a rough idea of what it would cost and it’s a truly stunning number, something north of $100 billion or more than $500,000 for each homeless person.
Los Angeles has a quarter of the state’s homeless population, about 45,000, and the staff report calculated that it would cost $2.2 billion a year for 10 years, of the city’s own funds and support from federal, state and county governments, to build enough housing for everyone now on city streets and expected to become homeless during the decade.
I think one of the biggest problems is that there are hundreds of organizations working to help the homeless; they are getting county, state, and federal funding, plus all the grant money available to help the homeless, and none of them are coordinating with each other. There should be a shared strategy, consistent program implementation, and a single source of money. Organizations won’t get funded unless they prove their plan worked in their area. The amount of money being spent is ridiculous, and it seems that we are getting no place. Perhaps all the organizations should be split into groups. One group would work on housing; one group would work on counseling, and one group would work on finding jobs for the homeless. One or two pots of money instead of thousands of pots of money and all with different goals. And a manager for each element.
The Homeless problem in CA will NOT end until they:
1 – close the border,
2 – deport all the illegals,
3 THEN SPEND THE ALLOTTED FUNDS ON THE HOMELESS – starting with the vets and mothers with children first!!!!!!