California has a Homeless Epidemic

I’ve said this again and again and again, money can help solve problems, but it won’t solve the problem. Case in point, and this is a very sad story, California has spent billions with the B, billions to fight homelessness, yet it’s only gotten worse. Over the past four years, to put this in a perspective, $17.5 billion, over the same period of time, the state’s population actually grew. Half of all Americans living outside on the streets live in California. 170,000 unhoused people live in there. And again, you take 170,000 and you, you know, well, take 17.5 divided by 170,000, that’s almost $105,000 per person. And they’re still on the streets. And they’re saying that the problem would be much, much worse. Absent all of these interventions. I don’t know, maybe, maybe not. So what’s your solution? Would you just throw more money at it? You think that that’s gonna work? I’ve talked about this, I’ve written column after column paper after paper about this, about government assistance. And government assistance, you know, the goal should be to get people on their feet and on their own. And yes, we made poor choices here in this country. We’ve shut down various different institutions of people who need help when it comes to mental illness. The drug problem here in this country is just… It’s out of control, it’s an embarrassment. Over 100,000 Americans dying every single year to drug overdoses. You see it in the street. I mean, I see it in the streets. I go into the city often for work. And it wasn’t like that. Wasn’t like that. I had one, you know, for a period of time, I had one apartment that was down, was a flat that I had. that was actually above the Delmonico building, the famous steakhouse in downtown New York. And there was a homeless shelter up the road there. So I’d see some people in the streets from time to time, but no, it wasn’t that bad. Now it’s everywhere. And they keep talking about the cost of housing, the cost of housing, the cost of housing. There’s plenty of places where the cost of housing has not… It’s much more than that. That’s an excuse, quite frankly, and the excuse, quite frankly, doesn’t fly. They’re saying that they need more and more units in California. We need 2.5 million more units, those housing units there, and it’s affordable housing that, quite frankly, it makes it difficult to build when you can’t, you know, the zoning isn’t set right, you have too many regulations. It makes it very, very difficult. So, you know, quite frankly, total of 20.6 billion has been allocated through 2024 to combat homelessness. 4 billion went to local governments to spend on anti-homelessness initiatives. 3.7 billion went to a program called Project Home Key, which also funds local governments. Am I curious to know how much of this money is blown and wasted on absolute nonsense? Um, again, it is, I wish I had an answer. I wish I had an answer, but I can tell you this much, um, throwing more money at the problem is not going to solve it because we continue to throw more money on it and it makes it work. It makes it worse. Um, you’re going to have to come up with a different solution. My fear is that that’s going to be the next. It’s gonna be the next great left-wing thing here is that you’re gonna have a right to housing here in this country. They pitched that with the Obamacare. You have that, you have the right to healthcare. You have the right, well, and I said it back then. I said, guess what’s next? You’re gonna have the right to housing. And now the taxpayers are gonna have to provide it to all of these people. And again, that’s a black hole. It’s a black hole. I’ve gone over the numbers, the people that get into government assisted housing, section eight housing, it’s multi-generational. It’s not supposed to be multi-generational. It’s not supposed to be. You’re supposed to get off this. And again, I don’t mind social safety nets, but you shouldn’t aspire to get these things and stay on them. You should try to get off them. And again, there’s something missing in our culture. Okay, that I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know what it is, but many people they end up being content on this. I speak from experience. I’ve got friends that do maintenance, the contracts with the government to do maintenance in a lot of this section eight housing and the stories they tell me and what goes on. It does, it breaks your heart. As a Christian you want to help these people. You want to get them on their feet. But again, they have to help themselves as well. And how will we get to that point? I don’t know. More money’s not gonna help. Watchdog on wallstreet.com