California legislators request audit of billions in state homeless spending
California’s 2021 budget allocated $12 billion to alleviate homelessness over two years, but the state has spent $23 billion over the last five years.
Ria Roebuck Joseph
Updated: March 22, 2023 - 11:00pm
“Our residents deserve to know how (homelessness) dollars are getting there and how they are being invested. What’s working and what’s not, and I think we need to know that as well. Adding transparency will help both the state and local jurisdictions work together to figure out how to best spend these dollars going forward,” Senator Dave Cortese told the Joint Legislative Committee.
In a bipartisan request, California’s Senators Dave Cortese (D - San Jose), Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R - San Bernardino) and Roger Niello (R - Sacramento) and Assemblymembers Evan Low (D - Silicon Valley), and Josh Hoover (R - Sacramento) asked the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to authorize an audit of public funds intended for the relief of homelessness throughout the state. “We would like to know how the state and cities use state, federal and local funds to address the homelessness crisis and how effective the investment of public funds has been to date,” the joint letter read.
Cortese presented his request at a regular session of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, on March 22, 2023. He stressed the urgency of theaudit now, so that any necessary change of direction can be taken before “the funds are out the door.” Audit 2023-102 of State and Local Government Homeless Funding was approved unanimously in a 12-0 vote. The audit was initiated last year by Sen. Cortese after seeing the urgency of the homeless crisis in San Jose following a visit to the Columbus Park encampment.
“We’ve all seen homeless encampments, but what I saw was far worse than a tent city, it was a public health disaster. The request for an audit asks the State Auditor to review San Jose and another municipality of the auditor’s choosing looking into the use of state and federal funding to identify a number of things:
• How many homeless received shelter and services?
• Has the state’s investment been effective?
• How much have the cities received in state and federal funding?
• Have the cities identified potential sites for both permanent housing and temporary housing?
• As well as a number of other things. “I think the audit will shed some light on whether or not the investments we’re making are getting to where they need to go and if they’re not, it will allow us to make a course correction.”
California’s 2021 budget allocated $12 billion to alleviate homelessness over two years, but the state has spent $23 billion over the last five years, as was revealed at the audit request. San Jose, represented by Sen. Cortese, has seen asteady rise in its homeless populationfrom 4,350 residents in 2019 to 7,000 in 2022, a fraction of the estimated 10,000 unhoused individuals. (It’s way higher than 10,000)
Additionally, a recent study by United Way noted “the need for more effective solutions to address youth homelessness in this area, particularly for young people of color,” in the city of San Jose, when it was named as the city with the highest unhoused population of adults aged 18 to 24 years.
“We want to shelter the largest number of people possible, get them into permanent housing and wrap-around services…While our region is building permanent supportive housing as completely and competently as any community in the state, the reality may be several years before most of these housing units are ready, meanwhile we have too many people living out in the elements in conditions like we see right outside today, “
In his closing remarks of the presentation Contese stressed, “We need transparency. We need to know which strategies have worked best. We need to know how we can improve our future efforts. I think we need this action now.
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/california-legislators-request-audit-billions-state-homeless-spending