Politicians created and support homelessness

I was reminded of that experience while in Sacramento attending a real estate brokers conference. Homeless camps are sprawling across sidewalks and public parks. Sacramento’s homelessness is so bad that Sacramento County’s district attorney has filed a lawsuit against city authorities claiming they aren’t doing enough to remove homeless people from public parks and local residents have to endure hazards and threats of violence. 

According to estimates, California has about 180,000 experiencing homelessness. There are different opinions, all valid, as to why California, with 12% of the country’s population, has nearly half of the unhoused people in the U.S. and how to respond to the situation. 

Housing advocates tell us that California’s chronic housing shortage is responsible for so many unhoused. Mental health professionals point to mental illness and drug addiction and the need for more treatment facilities. Federal judges are criticized for ruling that people have a right to camp wherever housing isn’t provided. Not surprisingly, state lawmakers believe the issue needs more money and have approved a $6.4 billion bond issue for the March primary ballot, which they claim will build mental health treatment facilities and housing units. 

Homelessness has become a muti-billion-dollar industry in California. According to research firm Cause IQ, there are 455 homelessness prevention organizations in the state, 732 housing programs and $7.2 billion of the state’s last budget was spent on different homeless programs. Despite these efforts, California’s homeless population grew by 6% last year. Obviously, something isn’t working. Considering California’s current budget deficit and projected future revenue shortages, it’s unrealistic to expect we can continue spending billions on homeless programs that don’t work. 

We have always had the poor. They haven’t always been living on the sidewalks. They lived in cheap, dilapidated apartments that didn’t meet building health and safety codes and were located in the poorest urban neighborhoods. Local governments condemned these low-income rentals under urban renewal programs. This action displaced many poor tenants into the streets and removed the availability of this low-income housing. Now California taxpayers are replacing private sector, low-rent housing with government-owned or financed housing costing up to $1 million a unit. 

In addition to taxpayer-provided housing, the homeless have access to a multitude of state and federal benefits including a monthly state stipend of $750, health care, food stamps and counseling. These are all worthy programs but without some accountability from the recipients, we are enabling the problem that will continue. Other states are having greater success with less money getting the homeless off the street, off substances and in the workforce.  

Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s previous travel ban to states having different political views, California homeless advocates have been traveling to Texas to study why the second most populous state is having success with their homelessness problem. 

Since 2012, Texas has had a 28% drop in homelessness while California has had a 43% increase. Last year, not counting federal monies, Texas put $19.7million into three primary homelessness programs equal to about $806 per unhoused person. California sends $1.85 billion into our three main programs averaging $10,786 per unhoused person. 

California spends much of its homeless budget for newly built or converted temporary housing. Texas places folks into privately-owned apartments using vouchers. The bureaucratic delays and public sector’s increased costs of new construction is eliminated. 

Studies have shown that mental health and substance abuse is common among the homeless. Texas requires drug and alcohol testing and counseling as a condition for housing placement and their law enforcement and courts may compel treatment. Not so in California. State laws prohibit California homeless service agencies from requiring drug and/or alcohol treatment. California’s decriminalization of a number of laws and no cash bail policies has made it impossible for law enforcement to have any meaningful effect. 

Texas is also more punitive than California regarding homeless encampments. Texas has laws obligating local governments to clear homeless camps and law enforcement is empowered to cite and fine campers. Both California and Texas utilize navigation centers, but Texas has a 90% placement rate for permanent housing. San Francisco’s largest navigation center reported only 8% of people who left the program ended up in permanent housing.

Poring more money into programs that haven’t worked isn’t a solution. Increasing homeless benefits without accountability enables more dependency. Politicians should follow programs that work even though they come from Texas. 

Ken Calhoon is a real estate broker in El Dorado County. He can be reached for questions and comments at ken@kencalhoon.com.