California spent more than $24 billion between 2018 and 2023 to address the state’s homeless issue. Now the question is: Has the money spent been effective? According to a new state audit, no one really knows.
On Tuesday, April 9, California State Auditor Grant Parks released a report revealing the state hasn’t been keeping track of where those billions of dollars are being spent and if they are helping to solve the issue.
According to the audit, more than 180,000 Californians experienced homelessness in 2023 — a 53% increase from 2013.
To combat the crisis, more than 30 homeless and housing programs dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness in the state spent billions of dollars over the last five years.
Now, the state doesn’t have enough data or transparency to understand why conditions did not improve in many California cities, according to the audit.
The report states that in 2021, California’s Interagency Council on Homelessness — created in 2017 to allocate programs and resources to the homeless — stopped consistently tracking where and how it was spending its state funding.
“The state auditor’s findings highlight the significant progress made in recent years to address homelessness at the state level, including the completion of a statewide assessment of homelessness programs,” a statement provided to The Associated Press said. “But it also underscores a need to continue to hold local governments accountable, who are primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness.”
Among other findings, the audit revealed that homeless services in two major California cities, San Jose and San Diego, failed to track their spending as well.
“The state must do more to assess the cost-effectiveness of its homelessness programs,” the report concluded.
