Homelessness Epidemic: the Public Sector is a Welfare Program

California’s homeless crisis proves the public sector is a welfare program and political tool. The California State Auditor released a report this month that reveals California’s programs to combat homelessness have been utterly ineffective. Nine agencies funded by the state have received billions from 2018 to 2023, but homelessness is rapidly rising and California hosts the largest homeless population in the nation. What have these public agencies done with the $24 BILLION they were awarded to combat homelessness?

Homelessness have risen by 56.7% in California since 2015. The federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been used to funnel money to smaller state entities under the impression that they would use the money to assist the people. California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) takes the funding from HUD to coordinate with these main nine failed programs, but the audit found that CAL ICH has failed to consistently track where this money has gone and has zero methods in place for gathering data on the success of these federally funded initiatives.

“Cal ICH’s statutory goals give it specific responsibilities as the State’s primary resource for homelessness policy coordination and accountability. However, it has also been directly managing multiple large grant programs as mandated by statute, including the multibillion‑dollar HHAP program and the more‑than‑$700 million ERF program,” the study found.

The audit could “not determine the cost-effectiveness” of any of the programs funded by HUD through Cal ICH as they have “not collected complete outcome data for this program, and the expenditure data it has collected may be unreliable.”

This means that the federal government permitted the state of California to squander $24 BILLION in taxpayer funds in a mere five years. They were provided this money with no strings attached and were not required to prove that their agencies were working. As Argentina’s Javier Milei said, “The origins of our evils is the cancer called the public sector.” There are people within these non-profit agencies making a lot of money to do absolutely nothing. The public sector has largely become a form of government welfare as they produce nothing but expect everything. If these agencies actually combatted homelessness, they’d be out of work.

For example, CEO of Dignity Health, Lloyd H. Dean of California was the highest paid nonprofit executive in 2022 after taking home $35.5 million when his agency made a revenue of $9.5 billion. Second in line was Gregory Adams of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, who earned $15.6 million with a revenue of $68.1 billion. The third highest-paid non-profit role went to Teresa Campbell of San Diego County Credit Union, who earned $11.8 million on a revenue of $305.2 million. Their organizations are largely tax-exempt since they’re not for profit.

The audit concluded that the state should be held accountable and have some form of reporting standards in place. “To promote transparency, accountability, and effective decision‑making related to the State’s efforts to address homelessness, Cal ICH should request that state agencies responsible for administering state‑funded homelessness programs provide spending‑ and outcome‑related information for people entering, experiencing, and exiting homelessness,” the audit concluded.

They should completely eliminate these agencies. The $24 billion was certainly enough to see that these agencies are merely leeching off of society, preying upon the most vulnerable in our nation. How could homelessness have more than doubled since these agencies were implemented? Simple. The people in control of the money are misusing the funds.

Those who want socialism or social justice fail to realize that this is precisely what happens to entire nations when the public sector becomes the supreme leader. They create useless agencies that continue to grow like cancerous cells, multiplying in size and in funding. THEY PRODUCE NOTHING! The federal government provides them funding without expecting results. This is a dirty game that the federal government plays with its pet state, and in the end, we the people always lose.