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“Homelessness” is a manufactured social welfare crisis in which the usual dysfunctions of drug addicts and the mentally ill were transformed into an abstraction ‘homelessness’ which was then blamed on the evils of capitalism.
Solving it then became an excuse for dumping money into an endless money hole at whose other end were the consultants, contractors and community organizers who make up the real base of the Democrats.
How much money vanished into that endless hole?
Proposition HHH was going to solve the homeless crisis by hiking property taxes to raise $1.2 billion. The money would be used to build housing for the homeless. $1.2 billion could house all the homeless.
Couldn’t it? If it couldn’t, it was part of a $4.6 billion package of homeless tax hikes. There was Proposition H which added to the already hefty sales tax. Los Angeles voters backed that one too.
But instead the number of homeless increased faster than the supply of homeless housing. By ’18, the number of homeless was up to 58,000 from 32,000 in 6 years. Increasing subsidies to the homeless only increased their number. As usual, government social welfare was generating more of the problem.
And, even more predictably, no amount of social services spending was ever enough. The annual shortfall was estimated this year at $270 million. The new projected cost hovers at $628 million.
The homeless housing being approved costs an average at $479,000 per unit. Two run at $650,000.
I wrote that back in 2018. Gov. Gavin Newsom used every trick to ram through another homeless initiative meanwhile the billions spent on homelessness are going, who knows where?
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.
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.
That’s what they call a feature, not a bug. The social welfare state is built to eat infinite amounts of money.
That’s how Mrs. Bill de Blasio’s $800 million for mental health vanished. It’s how Zuckerberg’s $100 million vanished. If you think of the liberal social welfare experiment as organized crime on a scale that dwarfs every cartel and mafia in the world, you won’t be far wrong.
The least harmful, most effective, and cheapest remedy, according to theory, is subsidized rent. That way the rent goes back to the landlords, strengthening small business and the middle class.
I agree…any property owner who has invested hard-earned money in rental property, would be straining at the leash to rent their property ( knowing how it will be destroyed by the renters) to drug addicts, alcoholics and people with major mental health problems that make them uncontrollable. The California Unicorn Solution.
Indeed Algo, for what they spend on housing one ‘homeless’ person, they could put three of them up for the year in an Intown Suites or some other chain of extended stay hotels.
I think the problem with that will be that the extended stay chains have more hookers, drug addicts, and crazy people than they want as it is. They can expect the place to be trashed quicker than they can maintain it by more addicts and mental cases, and it will probably end up being unprofitable. They also have to worry more about one accidentally, or on purpose, burning the place down.
They’ll have to do do something to treat their addicts and crazies. Dems being pro drug and pro euthanasia, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got around to giving the ‘homeless’ all The drugs they could do so they die quicker, happier, and cheaper. And those zombie drugs turn them into statues so they can’t bother anyone or cause trouble while they’re high.
It’immoral, but the problem is so bad, it’s tempting, and I half-joke about it time to time. Turning homelessness into a multibillion dollar industry sure isn’t helping anybody but the leftists that make a living off the largesse, and the politicians getting donation kickbacks from them.
Yeah, putting them up in the Fentanyl Hotel would be better, but I didn’t suggest it because I don’t think it would fly, politically.
These billions finance the protest, election, and lawfare activities of leftist organizations, and no doubt a lot of this money finds its’ way into the campaign coffers of democrat politicians.
A $Billion here a $Billion there…..Meh.
Democrats are not concerned about homeless Americans. They are concerned about homeless BENJAMINS. They found a good home for them in their back pockets…
Where are the anti-price gouging hawks, when a ‘business’ resells $200 tents for $3000? That’s a 1500% profit, and it’s probably worse because they get bulk discounts. The tool sheds they buy for housing are just as ridiculous. These same people pitch a fit when real businesses turn a 10% profit.
And how do they get an occupancy permit for a tool shed? All those “rigorous housing standards,” they hold private builders to in California get waived for the ‘nonprofits’ in the homeless industry.
As if Greasehead Newscum would ever give a bum a single buck. He would just have his bodyguard shoot the guy to death. He’s such a scumbag.
And I’m MUCH better looking than him. Easy for me to say, though. I’m better looking than everybody except Brad Pitt and George Clooney, and they’re movie stars.
Aw, what am I saying? I’m better looking than them! It’s all I can do not to kiss myself when I see my beauty in a mirror.
In response to the ZERO tiny homes for the homeless that were built – out of the 1200 promised by Gavin Newson
“Focusing solely on timelines diminishes the hard work of numerous individuals dedicated to providing much-needed housing” says Monica Hassan, Deputy Director, Department of General Services.
Only NGOs and Government work can spend billions and produce nothing.
What I don’t understand is why are we struggling to house the homeless on the most expensive real estate on the planet. – The same goes for low income housing. The San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and I can’t speak to New York but I am pretty sure it is ranked up in the top cost globally are too expensive to house people that don’t generate enough income to support themselves.
I hear arguments about how poor people can’t live near their families. I CAN’T LIVE BY MY FAMILY and I am not poor and I work for a living. I don’t live on the coast of California or in the San Francisco Bay area because I CAN’T AFFORD IT. Yet MY taxes are going to support housing on luxury real estate for people who don’t make enough money to live there or for the homeless that don’t work at all.
It is nonsense. If teachers can’t afford to live in San Francisco, – the rich parents there will figure out a way to house them. The same goes for their gardeners and their housekeepers because they damn sure are not going to clean their houses themselves.
It shouldn’t be on the backs of the rest of Californian’s to see that the homeless and the poor are able to be housed on real estate that the rest of Californians can’t afford to live on themselves.