California Governments Have Invested At Least $1Billion of Taxpayer Money Into a Failing System

Everyone is invested in and counting on homeless shelters to work – to save lives, be the first bridge to a safer and better life, and get people off the streets. California governments have invested at least $1 billion of taxpayer money into the system since 2018.

But the system is failing. Shelters are deadlier than jails, scandals plague overwhelmed shelter operators and oversight is failing at every level. Across the state, shelters are failing to move the vast majority of residents into permanent housing.

“All you’ve done is create a very expensive merry-go-round.”

— Sergio Perez, who until recently served as the Los Angeles city controller’s chief of accountability and oversight

“I have to ask, as kindly and as respectfully as I can, ‘Well, what the f*ck did you think was going to happen?’”

— Larry Haynes, CEO of Mercy House, a Santa Ana-based shelter operator, who said many large group shelters are essentially forced to serve as psychiatric wards

“It doesn’t work, and it never has. That is part of what makes being homeless such a bad experience — that you have to be in these awful facilities for survival.”

— Dennis Culhane, an expert on homelessness who has lived undercover in shelters and studied their evolution over several decades

“The political role is mainly to clear the streets. What I’m really worried about is more funding going into shelter with very little attention to the things that would end homelessness.”

— Chris Herring, a UCLA assistant professor of sociology who spent 90 nights in San Francisco shelters

Sonya | February 27, 2025 | CalMatters

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