The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday it housed 47,925 veterans experiencing homelessness in fiscal year 2024, besting an earlier goal.
That’s the largest number of veterans experiencing homelessness the federal agency has housed since fiscal year 2019 and 16.9% over its goal of 41,000.
Read More
A plethora of federal agencies have spent well over $200 million attempting to alleviate homelessness in Washington state over the past 17 years, only for the number of people living on the streets to keep rising.
Federal agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), among others, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars since 2007 on grants to third parties intended to mitigate homelessness in Washington, federal spending data shows. Despite the nine-figure sum of taxpayer dollars spent, the number of homeless people in Washington grew by about 20% between 2007 and 2023, according to a report produced by HUD.
Read More
A private school in Los Angeles was forced to close due to rising safety concerns as a result of the homeless and drug-abusing population in the vicinity.
As Fox News reports, the circumstances of the closure are detailed in a lawsuit filed by Dana Hammond, the founder of the Academy of Media Arts. Hammond claims that the city’s failure to adequately protect the school from vagrants constituted a breach of contract with the building that hosted the school.
Read More
With all the devastating news about urban crime, drug overdoses, illegal immigration, rampant homelessness, out-of-control budgets, and educational failures, it is encouraging that President Donald Trump has committed his next administration to a saving America’s cities.
As Just the News reported, “With the nation’s first primary state as a backdrop, former President Donald Trump took aim Saturday at Democrats’ urban strongholds, vowing to both secure and revitalize blue cities weary from years of violence and economic decay.”
Read More
The far-left city of San Francisco is set to have its deadliest year on record in terms of drug overdoses, further emphasizing the coastal city’s struggles with rising crime, homelessness, and drug abuse.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the California city recorded 692 accidental overdose deaths from January to October of 2023, as reported by the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner last month. By the end of the year, that total is expected to top 800, surpassing the previous record of 720 deaths in 2020.
Read More
While Georgia saw its homeless population decrease by 45.6% between 2007 and 2022, it has increased by 4.4% since 2020.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development numbers revealed that 9.9 in every 10,000 people in Georgia were experiencing homelessness in 2022.
Read More
Georgia is giving more than $62.4 million in federal COVID relief money to groups fighting homelessness and housing insecurity worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state is allocating American Rescue Plan and State Fiscal Recovery Fund dollars to the 20 projects receiving money.
Read More
A housing project based out of old hotels in San Francisco became the site of overdoses, rampant crime, violence and unsafe living conditions, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.
The hotels are the main components of the city’s $160 million permanent supportive housing program, which failed in its goal of helping residents gain enough stability to find independence and their own housing, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A quarter of the tenants tracked by the government after exiting supportive housing in 2020 died.
Read More
Lanhee Chen, an educator and GOP policy adviser to presidential candidates, could have reconsidered his plans to run for state controller in California after the recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom flopped so badly in September.
Despite false poll-driven drama over the summer, Newsom easily sailed to victory in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one and Republican registrations have continued to dwindle in recent years.
Chen, 43, certainly doesn’t need the unglamorous and usually thankless job. In recent years, the statewide-elected controller post, California’s top bean-counter and auditor, has mainly operated outside the media spotlight even though the office holder is considered the state’s chief financial officer. That could change if the next controller is willing to shake up business as usual in Sacramento— exactly what Chen is pledging to do.
Read More
One night while we were sleeping, America lost its Constitution.
That’s not such an unrealistic scenario, and it can happen without gunfire or marches in the streets. In fact, with very little drama, it may be occurring at this moment. By itself, the U.S. Constitution is merely a collection of words. Only citizens who cherish liberty give the document real meaning, and if they remain silent when it’s under threat – as it surely is at this hour – our rights and freedoms become imperiled.
Read More
Denver spent twice as much money on its homeless population than it did on its students and police, a Common Sense Institute August report showed.
The city spent between $41,679 and $104,201 per person on its homeless population, compared to $19,202 per student in K-12 public schools in 2020, according to the report. In total it spent $481 million on healthcare, housing and other services for homeless people, over $100 million more than the Department of Public Safety’s budget.
Read More
The state government of California has been revealed to have spent $13 million on providing security for 120 empty houses for five months, even as a homeless crisis ravaged the state, Fox News reports.
In a report broken by local outlet Fox 11, the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) paid $9 million to the highway patrol from November 2020 to April 2021, and gave another $4 million to a private security firm over the same period, all for the purpose of protecting the vacant houses in Pasadena.
In a statement addressing the report, CalTrans said that the houses had been purchased by the government 60 years ago, when there were plans for a change in the local infrastructure by connecting the 710 freeway to the 210. However, that project “is no longer moving forward,” the government statement declared.
Read More
In the effort to combat homelessness and provide adequate inside sheltering options amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the city of Richmond is contracting with faith-based groups in the area and the Greater Richmond Continuum of Care (GRCoC), a network of service providers that aid the homeless population.
In past years Richmond has used the Anne Gile Center, located in Upper Shockoe Valley just north of downtown, as the city’s primary Cold Weather Overflow Shelter (CWOS), but it was closed down this year in part because of COVID concerns and partly in favor of the new plan.
Read More