Calif. Lawmaker Questions Spending on Homeless

A California Republican lawmaker is demanding more accountability after an audit showed the state spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over the past five years, but didn't track if the money improved anything.

An estimated 171,000 people are homeless in California, about 30% of all the homeless in the U.S.

"California is facing a concerning paradox: despite an exorbitant amount of dollars spent, the state's homeless population is not slowing down," Republican state Sen. Roger Niello said in a statement. "These audit results are a wake-up call for a shift toward solutions that prioritize self-sufficiency and cost effectiveness."

According to the state auditor's report, the billions spent on more than 30 homeless and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, California doesn't have reliable data needed to fully understand why the problem didn't improve in many cities, according to state auditor's report.

"This report concludes that the state must do more to assess the cost-effectiveness of its homelessness programs," State Auditor Grant Parks wrote in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers.

Niello said some key findings in the California audit included:

• The state "has not tracked and reported on the State's funding for homelessness programs since its 2023 assessment covering fiscal years 2018-19 through 2020-21. Currently, it has no plans to perform a similar assessment in the future. In the absence of an up‑to‑date assessment, the State and its policymakers are likely to struggle to understand homelessness programs' ongoing costs and achieved outcomes."
• The state "has not established a consistent method for gathering information on homelessness programs' costs and outcomes. As a result, the State lacks information that would allow it to make data driven policy decisions and identify gaps in services."
• The state "has neither ensured the accuracy of the information in the state data system, nor has it used this information to evaluate homelessness programs' success."

Newsom has targeted the state's homeless crisis as a top priority, and he campaigned aggressively for a proposition passed last month that imposes strict requirements on counties to spend on housing and drug treatment programs.

Yet the audit found that out of five programs that get a combined $13.7 billion in funding, only two are "likely cost-effective," including one that converts hotel and motel rooms into housing and another that provides housing assistance.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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