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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 sort out the homeless crisis over the previous 5 years however didn’t constantly observe 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 packages throughout the 2018-2023 fiscal years, the issue didn’t enhance in lots of cities, in keeping with the state auditor’s report.
Among different issues, the report discovered that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH), which is accountable for coordinating businesses and allocating assets for the homelessness packages, stopped monitoring whether or not the packages had been working in 2021.
It additionally failed to gather and consider consequence knowledge for these packages because of the lack of a constant technique, the audit discovered.
FILE: Homeless tents are seen close to the City Hall of San Francisco in California, United States on August 29, 2022. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency by way of Getty Images)
California Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher laid the blame squarely on the Newsom administration.
“This is standard Gavin Newsom – make a splashy announcement, waste a bunch of taxpayer money, and completely fail to deliver,” Gallagher stated in an announcement to Fox News Digital.
“Californians are tired of the homeless crisis, and they’re even more tired of Gavin’s excuses. We need results – period, full stop.”
Republican state Sen. Roger Niello has referred to as the audit “troubling” however instructed Fox News Digital he “wasn’t terribly surprised.
“The one concern I had with the audit was that the main focus was principally on housing and shelter points, which is definitely essential, however actually little or no about precise outcomes, getting individuals out of homelessness, not simply into shelter,” he said. “That’s type of half the job, possibly not even fairly half the job. And, in order that was a little bit little bit of a disappointment.”
Democratic state Sen. Dave Cortese, who requested the audit last year after touring a large homeless encampment in San Jose, said the audit “highlights the necessity for improved knowledge and higher transparency at each the state and native ranges.”
Early in the morning at the intersection of Jones and Turk Streets Urban Alchemys Danielle LeBlue calls the police when a homeless person still remains asleep as the sidewalks are cleaned in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California, Wednesday January 26, 2022. (Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, there’s a balkanized strategy to knowledge assortment and outcomes, with no centralized system for monitoring our investments,” he said. “This audit underscores the pressing want to determine finest practices and create a blueprint for how the State of California and our cities can tackle our most seen problem.”
Former MLB All-Star Steve Garvey, who is running against Rep. Adam Schiff in California’s U.S. Senate race as a Republican, said it would take “actual political braveness to make vital adjustments.”
“Since day one, I’ve advocated for a federal audit of California’s homelessness crisis,” he said. “I’m glad that the state has executed this, however now we want actual political braveness to make vital adjustments. Our unhoused individuals and our taxpayers deserve actual outcomes, no more failed insurance policies.”
Despite the audit’s findings, Cal ICH said it has made improvements in data collection after AB 977 took effect on January 1, 2023. The law requires that grantees of state-funded homelessness programs to enter specific data elements related to individuals and families into their local Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).
Still, Cal ICH is shifting blame to local governments, saying these municipalities must be held more accountable as they are the ones “primarily accountable for implementing these packages and amassing knowledge on outcomes that the state can use to judge program effectiveness.”
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“The Council continues to enhance its capacity to make sure that taxpayer {dollars} are spent judiciously and successfully, together with by offering technical help to native jurisdictions to assist align knowledge requirements and reporting,” Cal ICH said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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