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The takeover of California neighborhoods by homeless camps has been one of the most obvious features of the deterioration of public life. These camps moved beyond Skid Row and into nicer areas. Berkeley has been battling them lately and making headlines for it. But the only response by California officials was to raise more billions through taxes and ‘bond issues’ and then steal the money. While telling everyone to pay more.
Sales taxes in the area have shot up from 9.75% to as high as 11.25% to fund still more services for the ‘homeless’. The permanent sales tax increase is supposed to raise $1 billion a year to replace the stolen billions spent by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
In 2016 and 2017, LA voters approved $4.6 billion in homeless tax hikes on themselves that included a sales tax increase and Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure to build 10,000 housing units for the homeless, that taken together were supposed to end homelessness.
By 2020, the average cost of apartments for the homeless was at $531,000 and by 2022, a city audit found that one project was running to $837,000 for each unit. An audit blamed “a lot of consultants”. After 4 years of this, only 228 apartments for the homeless had been built.
Los Angeles then launched a pilot program to build 8×8 aluminum sheds for the homeless for only $130,000 each and then tent encampments for the homeless for only $2,600 per tent each month.
But after all those billions, Gov. Gavin Newsom is suddenly proposing to ban homeless encampments. The last two times he was so interested in cracking down on homelessness he was…
- Facing a recall election
- China’s boss Xi was visiting
What’s going on this time? This is his last term as governor. He’s going to be out soon and he’s trying to do what he can to move his name to the top of the list for 2028. And since there’s a lot of time between 2026 and 2028, he’s doing different things, like launching a podcast, playing the moderate on transgender men and now proposing to finally crack down on homeless encampments.
But is he serious?
Gov. Newsom isn’t leveraging real political power to end homeless camps filled with drug users and the mentally ill. What he’s doing is introducing a model proposal that he expects major cities to reject. This way he can have it both ways. He can pretend he’s trying to end the crisis while having someone else to blame.
Vintage Newsom.
National Voter ID . It is a must have ,
Governor Nuisance is trying to save his own rotten neck for the ways he is wrecking California with his Politics and stupidity
None of the many decades worth of government projects in the SF Bay Area worked, for too many reasons to list them all. The only thing that ever worked was rent subsidies, where private sector organizations provide the housing.
“But is he serious?” I choked on my coffee over this.
Gavin Newsom is not a serious person. Never was. Never will be.