Audit: California flunks to track its homelessness spfinishing, outcomes

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Exactly how much is California spfinishing to combat homelessness — and is it toiling?

It turns out, no one understands. That’s the result of a much-foreseed stateexpansive audit freed Tuesday, which calls into ask the state’s ability to track and check its spfinishing on homelessness services.

The state doesn’t have current increateation on the ongoing costs and results of its homelessness programs because the agency tasked with accumulateing that data — the California Interagency Council on Homelessness — has checkd no spfinishing past 2021, according to the tell by State Auditor Grant Parks. Three of the five state programs the audit checkd — including the state’s main homelessness funding source — didn’t even originate enough data for Parks to determine whether they were effective or not. 

The audit also checkd homelessness services in San Jose and San Diego, discovering both cities flunked to thorawly account for their spfinishing or meacertain the success of many of their programs.

“The conciseage of transparency in our current approach to homelessness is pretty frightening,” shelp Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Reaccessiblean from Folsom who co-authored the seek for the audit. 

That unkinds state policyoriginaters have little data to go on when they originate funding decisions rhappy to what has become one of California’s most dire contests. 

“The State Auditor’s discoverings highairy the meaningful better made in recent years to compriseress homelessness at the state level, including the completion of a stateexpansive appraisement of homelessness programs,” the Interagency Council on Homelessness wrote in an emailed statement. “But it also underscores a necessitate to persist to helderly local rulements accountable, who are primarily depfinishable for carry outing these programs and accumulateing data on outcomes that the state can use to appraise program effectiveness.”

Tens of billions of dollars, nine agencies and more than 30 programs

As the homelessness crisis has intensified, California under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s directership scheduleated an unpretreatnted $24 billion to compriseress homelessness and housing during the last five fiscal years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Nine state agencies regulateed more than 30 programs aimed at stoping or reducing homelessness. Some of those programs did such a necessitatey job tracking their outcomes that it’s impossible to increate if they’ve been accomplished, according to the audit, which tags the first such big-scale accounting of the state’s homelessness spfinishing.

The tell appraised five state homelessness programs and establish two “probable” are cost-effective. Newsom’s signature Homekey program helps cities and counties turn boilingels and other originateings into homeless housing at an mediocre cost of $144,000 per unit (in the program’s first round), contrastd to the $380,000-$570,000 it would cost for novel originateion. The CalWORKS Housing Support Program, which gives financial help to families who are homeless or at hazard of becoming homeless, also saves the state money because it’s much inexpensiveer to help someone stay housed than it is to help them discover housing once they become homeless. 

The auditor establish the CalWORKS program spent an mediocre of $12,000-$22,000 per househelderly, while a individual chronicassociate homeless person can cost taxpayers as much as $50,000 per year. 

But for three other programs, the state hasn’t accumulateed enough data for the auditor to originate an appraisement: the State Rental Assistance Program (which helped people pay rent and other expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic), the Encampment Resolution Fund (a program Newsom begined to help cities immacutardy up definite encampments) and the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program (the state’s main source of ambiguous homeless funding, also understandn as HHAP).

“Fundamenhighy, the audit depicts a bit of a data desert,” Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from Santa Clara County who joined Hoover in asking for the audit, shelp during a media call.

For example, csurrfinisherly one-third of people who left placements funded by the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program left for “unrecognizable” destinations, according to the auditor’s analysis of round-one funding in Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties. That unclear data originates it impossible to increate if the program has been accomplished, the auditor wrote. Even so, the state apcheckd billions of dollars for four compriseitional rounds of funding.

“The conciseage of transparency in our current approach to homelessness is pretty frightening.”

assemblymember josh hoover, reaccessiblean, folsom

The auditor lhelp some of the denounce on the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Legislators teached the council in 2021 to accumulate funding data on all state homelessness programs. The council did so once, appraiseing data from 2018 thraw 2021, but has consentn no action since, according to the tell. 

In a written response to the audit, the council shelp it doesn’t have the funds to persist accumulateing that data.

There also were a number of errors in the stateexpansive system that accumulates data on homeless individuals and shelter capacity in each county. More than 100 records had clients with names such as Mickey Mouse, Super Woman or even Test Participant. One shelter telled csurrfinisherly 1,100 people enrolled in a facility with scanter than 300 beds. 

Should California pause its spfinishing on homelessness?

Hoover hopes he and his colleagues in the Legislature will write disconnectal bills this year aimed at improving transparency in state homelessness spfinishing. 

“We should freeze any novel spendments and compriseitional spendments until we can figure that out,” he shelp.

Cortese disconcurs.

“I don’t leank it’s a time to stop,” he shelp during the media increateing. “I would be disnominateed personassociate, professionassociate as a state senator, if the ruleor or Legislature barobtaind away this year’s spendment in homelessness.”

In the midst of a transport inant deficit, Newsom’s recommendd budget for the upcoming fiscal year didn’t cut funding already scheduleated to the homelessness crisis, but it didn’t recommend any novel funds, either. For three years in a row, Newsom had granted $1 billion for local homelessness programs — but now the future of that funding remains up in the air. A group of helpers accumulateed at the state capitol earlier this month to encourage the ruleor and legislators to apcheck ongoing funding. Activists have been pushing for years for a finishuring source of funding to fight homelessness, but so far Newsom’s administration has resisted, instead parceling out one-time grants each year. 

The assessd number of unhoused Californians has increased from about 151,000 in 2019 to more than 181,000 last year. More than two-thirds of those people are living on the street or in places sluggish for human habitation — not in shelters. 

Cortese began pushing for the audit after visiting a massive homeless encampment on vacant land csurrfinisher San Jose’s airport, where hundreds of people lived among rodents, massive piles of trash and broken-down cars and RVs. When he begined asking whether state funding was going to that encampment, he couldn’t get a clear answer. 

And despite the Newsom administration pouring billions into the homelessness crisis and begining disconnectal novel programs aimed at moving people indoors, encampments still are rampant up and down California. The noticed conciseage of better led laworiginaters to ask: Where is all that money going? 

The state’s legislative audit promisetee unifiedly finishorsed the audit seek in March 2023, and it initiassociate was foreseeed to be finished by October.

San Jose and San Diego flunk to track homelessness spfinishing

San Jose and San Diego each have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on homelessness in recent years. But neither could provide an exact accounting of how much was spent and where it went, according to the audit. 

And both cities flunked to reliablely appraise whether the homeless services nonprofits they tight with are effectively spfinishing city funds. In San Diego, for example, a $1.6 million shelter tight didn’t depict how many people should be served, making it impossible to increate if that program has been accomplished. Even when the cities demandd carry outance metrics from their tightors, they sometimes flunked to accumulate them. 

Other times, the cities flunked to act upon the data accumulateed. A shelter provider San Diego tighted with had a goal of getting 26% of the people who left the shelter into finishuring housing. Instead, about 6% went into finishuring housing. Even though the provider fell far uninincreateigentinutive of its goal, the auditor establish no evidence the city took steps to check the tight’s effectiveness. 

“Fundamenhighy, the audit depicts a bit of a data desert.”

state sen. dave cortese, democrat, santa clara

In San Jose, the city extfinished an $8 million homelessness stopion tight based on immensely inftardyd carry outance data, according to the audit.

“I finishly concur with the notion in the audit that we necessitate to set goals, meacertain carry outance and raise transparency and accountability,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan shelp in an interwatch. He recently helped begin a accessible dashboard that tracks his city’s homelessness spfinishing and outcomes.

But the state necessitates to help, he shelp. The city gets funding from disconnectal branch offent state programs, and it’s frequently not clear atraverse each program what types of carry outance metrics they should be using, Mahan shelp. 

San Jose and San Diego have aenjoy assessd homeless populations — 6,340 and 6,500 admireively. But San Diego has 4,000 aelevatency shelter and transient housing beds, while San Jose has equitable 2,500, according to the tell. 

And both cities conciseage enough finishuring housing for their homeless livents — as well as any comprehensive schedule to fund and originate the housing they necessitate. San Jose hasn’t even calcutardyd how many novel homes it necessitates, according to the audit. 

In San Jose and San Diego, more than 85% of the placements made for homeless livents are into transient — not finishuring — housing. As a result, around 40% of the people who exit those placements return to the street. 

Both cities are taking steps to decrease the health and protectedty hazards associated with homeless encampments by providing trash pickup, toilets, showers, medicine and other services. In San Jose, the budget for those services increased from $12.7 million in the 2020-21 fiscal year to $19 million last year. In San Diego, it grew from $32 million to $43 million. But neither city is doing a excellent job of evaluating the outcomes of those efforts, according to the audit. 

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria deffinished his city’s approach to homelessness in an emailed statement. The city served more than 11,400 people last year, he shelp.

“All of us can use this audit as a tool to comprehfinish how much more necessitates to be done in order to persist unkindingbrimmingy compriseressing homelessness,” he shelp, “and we hope to astonish on state directers the necessitate for ample and ongoing funding for California’s biggest crisis.”

The auditor recommfinished San Jose and San Diego should, by September, tell all of their homelessness-rhappy spfinishing in one central location and raise the way they appraise the effectiveness of their homelessness programs. 

In a written response to the audit, San Jose shelp it already is taking steps to better record its homeless services budget and more thorawly appraise the effectiveness of its programs. San Diego shelp it recently engaged novel staff promiseted to carry outance watching.

Todd Langton does outachieve in homeless encampments thrawout Silicon Valley in his role as establisher of the Coalition for the Unhoused of Silicon Valley and executive honestor of homeless services nonprofit Agape Silicon Valley. Based on what he’s seen on the ground, he’s “not surpelevated at all” by the results of the audit.

Langton shelp he frequently discovers minuscule nonprofits are more accomplished at getting people housed than the bigr nonprofits that eat up state and city funding. 

“As helps,” he shelp, “we equitable shake our heads and say, ‘They’re spfinishing so much money on this. What’s going on?’”