Finally asking tough questions on homelessness

It didn’t require an audit for Californians to know the state’s homelessness efforts are poorly coordinated. But a report released last month from the state auditor has at least prompted state lawmakers to finally do their jobs and ask tough questions.

The report evaluated the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH), which is tasked with coordinating and monitoring the work of multiple state agencies charged with addressing homelessness.

With 180,000 people known to be homeless in California last year, up 50% from 2013, the state has had a humanitarian crisis playing out on its streets for a long time.

Accordingly, taxpayers have entrusted the state with billions of dollars at the state and local level to solve the problem. One might assume the state takes this responsibility  seriously and would proceed with common sense, like tracking what works and what doesn’t work to help guide how it does things.

But as the state auditor reported, “The state lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs, because Cal ICH has not consistently tracked and evaluated the state’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness.”

The auditor continued, “Cal ICH has also not aligned its action plan to end homelessness with its statutory goals to collect financial information and ensure accountability and results. Thus, it lacks assurance that the actions it takes will effectively enable it to achieve those goals.”

While one might think mass firings would take place as a result of such incompetence, the state has so far met this report with a hearing, which is better than nothing.

On Monday, lawmakers on the Assembly budget subcommittee on accountability and oversight grilled homelessness officials and were surprised at the lack of data on hand.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, commented, “You come to a budget committee, and there’s no numbers? How many people have we helped? How many people are off the street? … Because that’s what the public wants to know. What’s the money been spent on?”

Opined Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, “We can’t just be shoveling money at a problem without knowing if we’re spending the money wisely, in the most cost-effective way.”

Of course, both Assemblymembers Ting and Muratsuchi have been in office for a long time and could have been putting in the work to get to the bottom of this years ago.

Better late than never.

The inadequacy of state and local responses to homelessness has been extensively documented in these pages and elsewhere for years.

People are suffering and dying on the streets, but California state government can’t get around to making sure that it is meeting the challenge with  the seriousness it demands.

If this is how California handles one of the most visible, destructive and massive crises it could possibly have, just imagine how poorly California state government oversees everything else it does.

Is it any wonder that California’s education system continues to struggle? Is it any wonder that California’s transportation infrastructure is in such poor shape?

California’s Democratic supermajority hasn’t bothered to ask the tough questions about anything because it hasn’t had to. Elected officials like to pat themselves on the back for throwing money around but don’t bother making sure they’re doing any good.

It’s time for that to change.