Governor Gavin Newsom
( Editor’s note: On Wednesday, October 2, the Wall Street Journal ran “Newsom’s Homeless Accountability Veto” on its opinion page. For residents, who may not have seen the piece, it is below.
Sunshine may be the best political disinfectant, unless you live in California where there’s never accountability of transparency for government spending. Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill passed unanimously by his Legislature to require the state to report the results of its homeless spending.
A state audit in April revealed that California has spent $24 billion to combat homelessness over five years, even as the numbers camping on streets increased by tens of thousand. Auditor Grant Parks identified at least 30 programs “dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness,” but the agency didn’t collect data on them or analyze if they worked.
The state “lacks current information in the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs,” the audit noted. One program converted existing buildings such as hotels into homeless housing at a cost of $144,000 per units. Another provided financial assistance of $12, to $20,000 to those at risk of being homeless. Did either reduce homelessness?
Mr. Newsom apparently doesn’t want the public to know. Why else veto legislation that would require agencies to report annually on the costs and outcomes for each homeless program they administer? The California Interagency Council on Homelessness would have been charged with compiling the data and making it public.
The Governor wrote in his veto message that, “While I fully support efforts to increase accountability and the effectiveness of our state homelessness programs, similar measures are already in place.” This is the first time he has worried about redundancy in government. He also said recent legislation establishes “enhanced reporting requirements for two of the state’s largest homeless programs.” What about the others?
California voters in March narrowly approved Mr. Newsom’s $6.4 billion bond for homelessness, and the hard to avoid conclusion is he doesn’t want voters to know how it’s spent.
Can’t the legislature veto Newsome’s veto? I think it only takes 3/4 of them to do so.
This is insanity. Of course he doesn’t want us to know who received $24 billion of tax payer’s money. Beyond corrupt.