Never Enough Money

Is it possible to spend enough money to solve the homeless crisis, now in its Elevendy Seventh decade and showing no signs of getting better?

Is there enough money to fix it? No. A research team of smart people from nonprofit agencies working real hard to fix everything said there is not enough money on the entire planet to solve the homeless tragedy. But they’d like to try. Getting all the money on the entire planet, that is.

A multi-report on homelessness in various North Bay counties ran in the Ukiah Daily Journal last week. The stories were mostly interviews with city officials and/or those running agencies with names like the “Fore-See (Community, Compassion, Caring and Cash) Program.”

And what does everyone interviewed agree on? Not enough money. After 40 years allowing all these nonprofit groups to steer the Good Ship Hopeless onto rocky but lucrative shorelines, they come back insisting that with just a teensy bit more billions of dollars, per agency if possible, some real improvements will be made.

Honest. This time we mean it. Real progress, you betcha.

So instead of the old, failed “Constellation of Services” boondoggle, nonprofits say they will implement “Navigational Tools” to stop homelessness dead in its tracks, once and for all, or at least until the next county/city/state budget is prepared.

It never ends. These people have been running and ruining things from the start and have succeeded only in making it all worse. More people on the streets are pushing more shopping carts and dragging along more dogs. More tents. More filthy tent-filled camps. More drugs and crime and environmental degradation.

And in every city in California the quality of life for the rest of us plummets. They take our money and they make things worse because (Spoiler Alert!) THEY WANT TO KEEP GETTING RICH OFF THE HOMELESS. Oops. Didn’t mean to shout.

But lots of people have made and are making lots of money running these programs and the last thing they want is to solve the problem, because at that point they will be unemployed.

So they design strategies guaranteed to fail. The want to keep the cash cow alive and the homeless crisis thriving. It’s especially lucrative in California because every politician is a Democrat, and every employee at every nonprofit agency is a Democrat. (Cozy!)

But no one covering the issue ever thought to ask about the money. As in, “Umm, excuse me, but how many bazillions of dollars have federal, state and local agencies spent on homeless services in _ County since 1995?” The question is unanswerable of course, like asking your congressional representative how many cubic tons of sewage got flushed through California plumbing between 1995 and 2025.

A better question: If the previous kadzillion dollars has only made homelessness worse, why do we keep shoveling more money down the same sewer?

Instead we get grim news from the frontlines: brave counselors with spines of steel and hearts bursting with saint-like devotion, all working day and night to coerce their drug addled customers to attend meetings with service providers who mumble cliched slogans, vague encouragement, and when the session is complete they mumble, “And oh yeah: good luck.”

Is there precedent in which a company or business or agency or investment firm could fail so dismally for so long and yet continue to get billions of dollars in funding, along with high praise from government officials for performing selfless, high-minded work? It begs to be disbelieved.

The recent series simply pads out what has for so long been accepted as reality: These nonprofits are working hard to end the plight of the unfortunate homeless. Sob. I don’t believe it.

After 40 years of meetings, conferences, new plans, new slogans and much more money we’re further behind than when we started, way back when just a few fellows were standing on street corners holding “Will Work for Food” signs.