California tracking of homeless funds inconsistent

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over the past five years but didn’t consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money actually improved the situation, according to state audit released Tuesday.

With makeshift tents lining the streets and disrupting businesses in cities and towns throughout California, homelessness has become one of the most frustrating and seemingly intractable issues in the country’s most populous state. An estimated 171,000 people are homeless in California, which amounts to roughly 30 percent of all of the homeless people in the U.S.

Despite the roughly billions of dollars 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.

The audit analyzed five programs that received a combined $13.7 billion in funding. It determined that only two of them are “likely cost-effective,” including one that converts hotel and motel rooms into housing and another that provides housing assistance to prevent families from becoming homeless.

The remaining three programs, which have received a total of

$9.4 billion since 2020, couldn’t be evaluated due to a lack of data.

Democratic state Sen. Dave Cortese, who requested the audit last year after touring a large homeless encampment in San Jose, said the report depicts “a data desert” and shows an unsettling lack of transparency at every level.