It’s not a secret that the homeless crisis is exploding across major cities. This problem is affecting every corner of the country. But Democrat-run states are feeling the biggest brunt.
This is due in part to the decriminalization of drugs and laws that prohibit police from clearing away homeless encampments.
One blue state has 30% of the nation’s homeless. Democrats in charge have spent billions to address the problem. Unsurprisingly, it has only gotten worse. Now, a report is revealing that shocking thing Democrats did—or, better put, refused to do.
From Fox 2:
California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over a five-year period but didn’t consistently track the outcomes or effectiveness of its programs, according to state audit released Tuesday…“Up until last year, midway through 2023, there was no centralization of data around the flow of dollars from the state to local jurisdictions,” said Cortese.
Among other things, the report found that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, which is responsible for coordinating agencies and allocating resources for homelessness programs, stopped tracking spending on programs and their outcomes in 2021 despite the continuous funding from the state. It also failed to develop a collect and evaluate outcome data of these programs due to the lack of a consistent method.
In a damning report, State Senator Dave Cortese of California discovered that the state had stopped tracking the effectiveness of its homeless programs. California spent $24 billion in taxpayer money to address the growing homeless crisis. But for years, the state was not tracking spending nor the outcomes of these programs.
On top of that, it failed to develop a method to collect and evaluate “outcome data” of its efforts to battle homelessness. Cortese stumbled upon this shocking incompetence after visiting one of the state’s largest homeless encampments in San Jose.
He wanted answers from the city on why all the money spent on housing programs didn’t result in this encampment going away. If a city is spending millions, or tens of millions, to provide housing—why are people still living in tents?
To Cortese’s shock, the city—along with most of the state—wasn’t bothering to track what it was spending or if it was helping.
As horrible as this appears, it is all too common with bloated government spending programs. Democrats at all levels burn through billions of tax dollars, with little to no results. Despite this shocking level of failure, Democrats continue to demand more money from Americans for these failing programs.
This can be said of most welfare programs, not to mention Biden’s massive spending on the Ukraine war.
The question remains whether California is going to reform and correct this problem.
Key Takeaways:
- California has not been tracking the results of its homeless programs for years.
- The blue state has spent over $24 billion to address the homeless crisis.
- State Senate Dave Cortese discovered the state was not tracking any data, despite spending so much money.
Source: Fox 2
