Why Does Homelessness Continue to Grow?
Over $15 billion spent to see near-double-digit increases in California homelessness— will other states soon follow?
California’s Governor Newsom just announced that the state had spent over $15.3 billion to combat homelessness in the past year. The results?
California’s January 2023 “Point in Time” count shows over 126,000 homeless people, an increase of 9% over 2022.
As most of the rest of the state — excluding the top 5% of state income earners ($519,000+) know — the true number of homeless people in the state is far greater.
For $15.3 billion, the state could have directly built over 30,000 single- family homes at a cost of $500,000 each. It could have built over 60,000 condos at a cost of $250,000 each. These units could be offered to the homeless at an amount that they can afford on disability, Veteran, or other benefits because they would be bought and paid for. A rent (or mortgage) payment of $500 a month could provide maintenance, insurance, and upkeep.
The units could be built in areas not subject to fires and floods — anyone in the housing industry knows that these amounts would build good housing with quality materials that would last.
Not the types of materials and construction typically used to construct “affordable housing.”
The state could have penciled out these construction projects just like any developer. Homeless people — with few exceptions — do have income. They can pay something toward their housing.
But they can’t afford prices starting at $1,600 for a studio or “efficiency” apartment. They also cannot genuinely afford prices of $800 for a room in someone’s house: the main alternative for individuals earning less than $4,800 a month, the amount required to live stably in a $1,600 “efficiency” apartment.
Last year, California awarded $694 million to various cities to build housing for the homeless. The awards averaged about $300,000 per unit; I can guarantee most of these “units” are going to be single “efficiency” units with very few apartments available for families or couples. I can also guarantee it will take years, possibly more than a decade, for any of the “units” to actually be built, and for anyone to move in.
There’s also a big difference between $694 million and $15.3 billion. $14.6 billion, to be exact.
Vacant Homes vs. Tent, Street, and Van Dwellers
According to the California Association of Realtors, there are approximately 1.2 million vacant homes or apartments in California. Shortly before the end of my tenure as Vice President of Development at Beyond Shelter Los Angeles, I met with an executive from the Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles (HaCOLA). The County had, under its direct control, over 9,500 apartments in various buildings that had been abandoned by out-of-town owners.
The executive and I toured one of the buildings, located in an unincorporated area near Interstate 10 in central Los Angeles. I estimated that the building could have been brought up to code, and the units made into decent apartments for about $15,000 to $20,000 per unit.
That was over a decade ago.
LAist reported in August, 2023 that “hundreds of units” in buildings that had been previously occupied, or which were supposed to be opened to homeless tenants, remained vacant.
The lady I took on the tour of the abandoned 10-unit apartment building had no experience in any kind of housing development. She didn’t even know how a toilet would be replaced, or how wiring would or could be repaired.
I don’t know whose relative she was or why she’d been put, totally unqualified as well as uninterested, in her position. But this is the type of employee that’s hired. They go for years, accomplishing nothing except cashing their paychecks and receiving their guaranteed healthcare. Retirement, too.
None of them will end up on the streets. At least not the way things are going at present.
We Can’t Even Help Veterans
I’m not an expert in Roman history but I remember reading about why various Roman rulers became more popular and successful and others, less-so. Considering today’s parallels with the Roman Empire, I now wonder if the real reason behind Julius Caesar’s assassination was his permenant institution of land grants and money for retired Roman soldiers.
I have moved to Southwest Florida because of the horrible trends in my native state of California: homelessness, rapid increases in housing and many other costs, growing impossibility of working class and middle class people to survive.
Things are better in Florida than in California: a lot of middle-class housing is being built. However, the same trends we saw back in California are also beginning here.
This morning, I saw that a U.S. Veteran who had become homeless after Hurricane Ian lost his life. He was riding his bicycle to work when he was hit by a truck and died. I had met this hardworking, kind man before, and another friend who helped him put the messages about his tragic death on our social media.
He was set to move into a new place on September 1.
I worked with Veterans organizations in California. There is absolutely no excuse for our nation to treat Veterans this way. I knew homeless Vets at Family Service way back in the 80s. I worked with the Loma Linda VA VASH program. Returning to the field between 2005 and 2011 at Beyond Shelter, we also worked with Veterans, including women, who could not afford the excessive housing costs even at that time. Enlisted men and women who are retired or on disability pensions cannot afford to pay over $1,600 in monthly rent for basic accommodations for a single person. Just because retired commissioned personnel receive ample income does not mean that those who enlisted and served have their needs met. They do not.
Those of us who work for a living can see rapidly increasing prices for food, energy, clothing, and especially housing.
If I do not work, we do not eat. It would not take long for our savings to be exhausted if I became disabled and unable to work.
If I retire now, my husband’s social security and mine together would maintain us at a subsistence living.
Any disruption or unexpected expense would cause us to be unable to pay bills, including our mortgage.
I already had to move out of the state where I am a 5th generation native, and named “Teacher of the Year” at the school where I’d taught — part-time — for 20 years. I stayed in that job because I was loyal to the school. They helped me in so many ways after my baby Anthony died in 2005.
By 2018, when my husband Bruce became seriously ill and unable to work, the culture of mutual support and caring had totally changed. I not only received no help or consideration from the school, I received negative feedback and my job became harder. Not only did I receive no support from my superiors (plenty from colleagues — also struggling), I received punishment and no more class assignments. There was a motive for this. Any full-time instructor who taught “overload” prior to retirement (also including summer and interterm assignments) could retire at this higher pay amount. Maybe up to $10,000 a month or more in retirement income.
I’ll get about $2,000/month in Social Security when I retire.
At age 70. If I survive that long.
What Was The Real Downturn At My College?
I told my boss that I’d seen homeless teachers sleeping in their cars in the parking lot when I arrived to teach my 6:30 a.m. class.
Many of the younger part-time teachers had already lost their housing, with rapidly rising rents. I knew one attractive, bright young Ph.D. graduate who taught at three schools during the day and worked a retail job at the local mall in the evenings. So she could pay for a room in someone else’s house.
Shortly before I left the school where I devoted so much of my time and life at low pay to teach and motivate students (I got good at it, too) in preference to working in business consulting or promoting my writing (I’ve always been good at that, too), I attended a training session with another young woman. This young Latina was an extremely caring and well-prepared instructor. She was teaching at 4 schools to earn about $60,000 a year. With these funds, she was supporting her disabled, elderly parents and other younger family members, including a disabled sibling.
She was afraid if she lost any of her assignments, they would become homeless.
I have always refused to compromise my principles and morality for an “easy” life.
I’ve also always paid my bills and done anything and everything I could to not just survive, but live a decent, honest lifestyle.
That is getting harder and harder to do.
I still see many people blaming the homeless for being in their situation. I could easily have been in that position myself, and I am someone who developed affordable housing, is familiar with the “industry” and who is also familiar with “regular” housing development and the building industry.
Our country has gone on the wrong path for many decades. When working people cannot afford to put a roof over their heads or buy nutritious food, there is something desperately wrong.
The state of California and its Governor proudly advertise that they have “spent” $15.3 billion to achieve an official increase of 9% in homelessness.
The money has been spent. But it hasn’t been spent on building places for people to live nor on making places to live available for those who lack them.
There are over 126,000 official homeless people in my former home state. There are probably at least 3 to 4 million hardworking people who are afraid that ever-spiraling costs of housing, food, and heating and clothing will put them in the same situation.
Money is allocated. Money is spent.
I think we all know what has happened.
And it is about time we stop blaming homeless people, whose primary “crime” is the same crime I committed back in California at the college where I taught.
I didn’t pay attention to providing for my material comfort and needs to the exclusion of my job and my students. I didn’t turn my back on the values I was raised with to callously take advantage of someone else’s honesty and goodwill.
I wasn’t like the HaCOLA employee who was not only unqualified and incompetent, she did not care whether a single homeless person moved off the streets or not.
The fish rots from the head. I am pretty sure everyone knows that.
It’s just a question of when the fish gets thrown out.
It's been something to go from a ten-year-old watching the Reagan Revolution usher in a wholesale dynamiting of everything decent and good in our society, to every subsequent carbon-copy Reagan keep up the program. Now it's to the point that the graft and incompetence is not a bug, but a feature.
The federal government is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the libertarian cranks who are determined to make the Earth uninhabitable, while simultaneously creating maximum misery before that. States vary, but California seems bought, too. A ballot initiative for single-payer state-run healthcare was overridden by the legislature.
What must it feel like to have all your good works walked over by some patrician incompetent who could care less about the "dirty" and "undeserving" people she's supposed to help?