FILE – Homeless people wait in line for dinner outside the Midnight Mission in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. A state audit has found that California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over a five year period but didn’t consistently track the outcomes or effectiveness of its programs.
An estimated 171,000 people are homeless in California, which amounts to roughly 30% of all of the homeless people in the U.S. Despite the roughly $24 billion spent on homeless and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, the problem didn’t improve in many cities. With makeshift tents lining streets and disrupting businesses in communities across the state, homelessness has become one of the most frustrating issues in California.
The council, which lawmakers created to help the state deal with its homelessness problem, also has only reported on homelessness spending once since its creation in 2017, according to the report.