American cities across the country are experiencing a massive uptick in homelessness, but perhaps none more than Los Angeles, California.
Skid Row used to be confined to a one block area but now tents and other makeshift shelters can be seen throughout the city.
Billions of dollars have been spent trying to address this issue but it only seems to get worse, and now one member of the city council wants to create a new city department to focus on the problem.
How many more millions will be wasted as this new government entity fails to solve the problem?
CBS News reports:
LA councilmember wants a city homelessness department for a more effective response
A Los Angeles City Council member is advocating for the city to have its own department of homelessness, to consolidate and focus efforts on the issue.
Los Angeles Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez is lobbying Tuesday for a new department to create and oversee programs that address the homelessness crisis. The department would report to Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council, she said.
The councilwoman introduced a motion on the matter Friday as a first step in the process. The motion will be heard by the Housing and Homelessness Committee at a future date.
“A Department of Homelessness can help verify what each level of government is doing to solve the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time; I cannot say with certainty that we have an efficient and effective operation free of redundancies,” Rodriguez said…
She said systemic factors pose challenges to institutionalizing existing successful models or new ones governing the city’s $1.3 billion investment into its homeless response.
Jazz Shaw comments at Hot Air:
The problem here is that the councilwoman is using language that could probably describe most municipal departments in any large city. The announcement is basically a large pile of word salad. Rodriguez cites “irregular and imprecise reporting on contractually-obligated metrics and outcomes.” I suppose that’s fair enough, but where are the specifics? Which departments are assigned which responsibilities in responding to homelessness issues and who is collecting and compiling all of the results of those activities? If it’s not the city’s Housing Department in conjunction with the Mayor’s office, then there’s probably something very wrong, but a significant portion of the allocated funding is going to the City Administrative Officer for some reason.
Bill Melugin of FOX News recently posted a short video from downtown LA:
Good morning from downtown LA… pic.twitter.com/8vxnaD9moO
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 19, 2024
More of the same government and spending is not going to solve this problem. The city needs new leadership.