California Cant Account For $24 Billion In Homeless Spending

Some California Democrats are turning on their Golden State leader after Gov.

Gavin Newsom's homelessness council failed to track whether billions of dollars spent on curbing the homelessness crisis were successful in the last five years.

In a bombshell report last month, the state auditor found that nine state agencies have collectively spent $24 billion in state funding over the past five years in administering at least 30 programs dedicated to tackling the homelessness crisis, and the auditor said Newsom's homelessness council "is responsible for coordinating, developing, and evaluating the efforts of these nine agencies."

"You come to a budget committee, and there’s no numbers," Democratic Assemblymember Phil Ting said to Newsom's housing and homelessness officials during Monday's budget committee hearing. "How many people have we helped? How many people are off the street?"

"Because that's what people want to know," he added.

A California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CICH) executive responded that they're dealing with "data quality issues," so metrics are not yet available for how more than $20 billion was spent since the council's inception.