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California GOP leaders are calling for extra accountability after an audit launched earlier this week indicated that the state spent round $24 billion to deal with the homeless disaster over the previous 5 years however didn’t persistently monitor whether or not the large outlay of public cash did something to really enhance the issue.
The state auditor’s report discovered that regardless of roughly $24 billion spent on homeless and housing applications in the course of the 2018-2023 fiscal years, the issue didn’t enhance in lots of cities, in response to the state auditor’s report.
Amongst different issues, the report discovered that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH), which is answerable for coordinating businesses and allocating sources for the homelessness applications, stopped monitoring whether or not the applications had been working in 2021.
It additionally failed to gather and consider end result information for these applications as a result of lack of a constant methodology, the audit discovered.
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FILE: Homeless tents are seen close to the Metropolis Corridor of San Francisco in California, United States on August 29, 2022. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Company by way of Getty Photos)
California Meeting Republican Chief James Gallagher laid the blame squarely on the Newsom administration.
“That is customary Gavin Newsom – make a splashy announcement, waste a bunch of taxpayer cash, and utterly fail to ship,” Gallagher stated in a press release to Fox Information Digital.
“Californians are uninterested in the homeless disaster, and so they’re much more uninterested in Gavin’s excuses. We want outcomes – interval, full cease.”
Republican state Sen. Roger Niello has known as the audit “troubling” however informed Fox Information Digital he “wasn’t terribly stunned.
“The one concern I had with the audit was that the main focus was totally on housing and shelter points, which is actually vital, however actually little or no about precise outcomes, getting individuals out of homelessness, not simply into shelter,” he stated. “That is form of half the job, perhaps not even fairly half the job. And, in order that was somewhat little bit of a disappointment.”
Democratic state Sen. Dave Cortese, who requested the audit final yr after touring a big homeless encampment in San Jose, stated the audit “highlights the necessity for improved information and better transparency at each the state and native ranges.”
Early within the morning on the intersection of Jones and Turk Streets City Alchemys Danielle LeBlue calls the police when a homeless particular person nonetheless stays asleep because the sidewalks are cleaned within the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California, Wednesday January 26, 2022. (Getty Photos)
“Sadly, there’s a balkanized method to information assortment and outcomes, with no centralized system for monitoring our investments,” he stated. “This audit underscores the pressing want to determine finest practices and create a blueprint for the way the State of California and our cities can tackle our most seen problem.”
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Former MLB All-Star Steve Garvey, who’s operating towards Rep. Adam Schiff in California’s U.S. Senate race as a Republican, stated it might take “actual political braveness to make essential adjustments.”
“Since day one, I’ve advocated for a federal audit of California’s homelessness disaster,” he stated. “I’m glad that the state has carried out this, however now we want actual political braveness to make essential adjustments. Our unhoused individuals and our taxpayers deserve actual outcomes, no more failed insurance policies.”
Regardless of the audit’s findings, Cal ICH stated it has made enhancements in information assortment after AB 977 took impact on January 1, 2023. The legislation requires that grantees of state-funded homelessness applications to enter particular information parts associated to people and households into their native Homeless Administration Info System (HMIS).
Nonetheless, Cal ICH is shifting blame to native governments, saying these municipalities should be held extra accountable as they’re those “primarily answerable for implementing these applications and gathering information on outcomes that the state can use to judge program effectiveness.”
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“The Council continues to enhance its skill to make sure that taxpayer {dollars} are spent judiciously and successfully, together with by offering technical help to native jurisdictions to assist align information requirements and reporting,” Cal ICH stated.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
Bradford Betz is a Fox Information Digital breaking reporter masking crime, political points, and far more.
