American cities across the country are experiencing massive increases in homelessness, but perhaps none more so than Los Angeles, California.
Skid Row was once confined to a one-block area, but tents and other makeshift shelters can now be seen throughout the city.
Billions of dollars have been spent trying to address this problem, but the situation only seems to be getting worse, and now a city council member wants to create a new city department to focus on the problem.
How many more millions will be wasted if this new government entity fails to solve the problem?
CBS News reports:
Los Angeles councilman wants city homeless department for more effective response
A Los Angeles City Council member is advocating for the city to have its own homeless department to consolidate and focus efforts on the issue.
Los Angeles Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez on Tuesday is pushing for a new department to create and oversee programs that address the homelessness crisis. The department will report to Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council, she said.
The councilor presented a motion on the topic on Friday as the first step in the process. The motion will be considered by the Housing and Homelessness Committee at a future date.
“A Department of Homelessness can help track what each level of government is doing to solve the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time; I can’t say for sure that we have an efficient and effective operation with no redundancies,” Rodriguez said…
He said systemic factors pose challenges to institutionalizing existing or new successful models that govern the city’s $1.3 billion investment in responding to homelessness.
Jazz Shaw comments on Hot Air:
The problem here is that the councilwoman is using language that could probably describe most municipal departments in any major city. The ad is basically a big pile of word salad. Rodriguez cites “irregular and inaccurate reporting on contractually obligated parameters and outcomes.” I suppose that’s fair enough, but where are the details? Which departments are assigned responsibilities for responding to homelessness issues, and who collects and compiles all the results of those activities? If it’s not the city’s Department of Buildings in conjunction with the mayor’s office, then there’s probably something very wrong, but for some reason a significant portion of the allocated funding goes to the city’s administrative officer.
FOX News’ Bill Melugin recently posted a short video from downtown Los Angeles:
Good morning from downtown Los Angeles… pic.twitter.com/8vxnaD9moO
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 19, 2024
Raising the same government and spending will not solve this problem. The city needs new leadership.