(LibertySociety.com) – California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is under fire after the State Auditor’s report was released on April 9. The report showed that his administration had seemingly lost $24 billion in taxpayer funding that was supposed to have been spent to combat the homelessness crisis. The money was allocated over five years from 2018 to 2023, but the report found gaps due to insufficient data collection. Grant Parks, the state’s lead auditor, said that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) did not conduct consistent tracking or evaluations of the “State’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness” from 2021 onward.
The report also stated that Cal ICH had not considered its statutory goals when formulating its action plan that would have ensured the success of the effort. Overall, the report showed that it was impossible to determine if the money was actually spent on helping end homelessness. James Gallagher, who is the Republican leader for the California Assembly, blasted Newsom after the release of the report. He told Fox News that it was typical Newsom behavior to “make a splashy announcement, waste a bunch of taxpayer money,” and then “completely fail to deliver.” Gallagher said that Californians had grown tired of hearing excuses from Newsom and dealing with homelessness in the state.
California Republican Rep. Kevin Riley slammed Newsom for killing his audit request in 2020, arguing that the results of the audit showed why Newsom did not want an examination of his spending back then. He pointed out that homelessness had gone up by 32 percent over the last five years in the state. He added that in Sacramento alone, homelessness had increased by 67 percent. Additionally, he noted that half of the homeless people in the United States lived in California. U.S. Republican Senate candidate Steve Garvey commended the state for conducting the audit but urged lawmakers to have the courage to solve the problem.
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