California has allotted greater than $20 billion to alleviate the state’s homelessness disaster since Gavin Newsom turned governor in 2019, however there’s treasured little knowledge on how the cash was spent and what impact it’s had, apart from the variety of unhoused individuals has continued to climb.
Regardless of the absence of arduous info, Newsom has been extremely important of what he characterizes because the shortcomings of native governments and has threatened to withhold funds from these deemed to be laggards. Native officers, in flip, say they can not assemble complete, long-term methods except Newsom is keen to make multi-year commitments of monetary help.
Earlier this yr, state Auditor Grant Parks issued a harshly worded audit of the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Newsom administration’s instrument for coordinating homelessness applications.
“The state lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs, because (the council) has not consistently tracked and evaluated the state’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness,” Parks wrote, including that its most up-to-date knowledge is three years previous.
Furthermore, Parks mentioned, the council “has also not aligned its action plan to end homelessness with its statutory goals to collect financial information and ensure accountability and results. Thus, it lacks assurance that the actions it takes will effectively enable it to achieve those goals.”
It’s fairly cheeky for Newsom guilty native officers if his personal company has been so laggard in gathering details about the place billions of {dollars} have been spent and the way efficient these expenditures have been.
The footdragging on knowledge, nonetheless, shouldn’t be confined to the state.
Since 2020, David O. Carter, a federal decide in Los Angeles, has been presiding over a lawsuit filed by the LA Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition of individuals from companies, neighborhoods and homeless teams demanding to understand how officers in Los Angeles County have spent homelessness funds. He’s indignant a few lack of response from the Los Angeles Homeless Companies Authority.
“If there isn’t documentation of the work being done, it’s not being done. That can be our only conclusion,” Carter mentioned throughout a current listening to, telling company officers, “You’re not working on your time frame now. You’re working on mine.”
Matthew Umhofer, an lawyer for the LA Alliance for Human Rights, mentioned, “The town and the county have been saying for many years they’re making an attempt actually arduous on homelessness, however we’ve to see outcomes.
“An audit like this is a tool that helps us try and figure this out, but at the end of the day we need more beds,” Umhofer added. “We need more services. If the city and county don’t know where the documentation is that shows beds and services are being provided, we’ve got a massive problem.”
Umhofer mentioned that if the state of affairs doesn’t enhance, Decide Carter can impose sanctions on town and county, appoint a receiver and even assume management of homelessness companies.
In the meantime, again in Sacramento, the hunt for arduous info on homelessness has taken a child step ahead.
Earlier than adjourning its 2024 session, the Legislature accepted a invoice that may direct state companies that administer homelessness applications to yearly file reviews on spending and outcomes to Newsom’s interagency council, which then can be required to make the knowledge out there to the general public.
Assemblyman Josh Hoovera Folsom Republican, carried Meeting Invoice 2903which implements one of many Parks audit’s suggestions.
“Improving accountability over the dollars we are spending is the first step toward real reform,”’ Hoover mentioned in an announcement. “Spending billions of taxpayer dollars only to make the crisis worse is the definition of failure.”
That must be apparent. Now we’ll see if Newsom indicators the invoice.
