California has not been tracking its spending on addressing the state’s homelessness crisis or the results of its programs, a state audit revealed this week
The report, which took over a year to complete and was requested by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, sought to account for the $24 billion California has spent on its fight against homelessness.
“Not only did the audit struggle to measure the effectiveness of programs that we’re spending money on, in most cases, we don’t have enough information to even measure the outcomes of programs and where the dollars are going,” Assemblyman Josh Hoover, of Folsom, said.
California spends more on homelessness each year, but the number of people on the street continues to climb as many as 181,399 as of 2023.
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California State Senator Roger Niello, who represents Yuba County in Northern California, said too much power is concentrated in Sacramento and not in California’s 58 counties that typically administer health services.
“The governor developed 30 programs and they’ve been relegated to do whatever the state tells them to, and that’s a good deal why things are ineffective and why they’re not properly reported on,” Niello said.
The audit also analyzed homelessness services in San Jose and San Diego and found both cities failed to thoroughly account for their spending or measure the success of many of their programs.
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“So much of the focus at the local level is on getting the dollars out the door, meeting these spending deadlines — versus determining whether these dollars are actually working,” Hoover said. “In my mind, the latter part of that equates with what we need to be focused on, but we’re not.”
