Audit sought on state, local homeless spending during the past five years
Republican Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh and her California Legislative Republican colleagues may finally get some answers on how the state and local communities have spent billions in homeless spending over the last five years.
Bogh, Vice Chair of the Senate Housing Committee, and Senator Roger Niello, Vice Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, joined Democrat Senator Dave Cortese in winning a request to audit billions of dollars California has spent on addressing the homeless crisis from the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
Yesterday, members of JLAC unanimously approved the audit request. The audit will examine how the state and cities have spent state, federal and local dollars to tackle the homeless crisis.
“This is a good start,” said Bogh. “California Legislative Republicans have been calling for accountability to homeless spending for several years. I am thankful my colleagues on the other side of the aisle helped make this effort a successful bipartisan action that will begin to give taxpayers an idea of how these dollars have been spent on a crisis that has only gotten worse.”
California has spent more than $20 billion over the last five years on homelessness and has seen the population of unhoused in this state explode to more than 172,000.
The governor announced earlier this month he plans to spend another $1 billion of taxpayer dollars with a hope of reducing the homeless population by a mere 15 percent by 2025.
“Homelessness is the most urgent issue facing California,” said Niello. “Given the crisis has only worsened, we need to know what the money has accomplished and what programs have been effective in moving people to permanent housing.”