A new state audit has revealed California didn’t consistently track its spending over the last five years in its efforts to combat homelessness.  The state spent 24-billion dollars in public money on homeless and housing programs between 2018 and 2023, but according to the audit, the crisis didn’t improve. 

The report found that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, the agency responsible for allocating agencies and resources for programs, stopped tracking how much was spent on them in 2021.  It also stopped tracking whether the programs were working. The audit found that a lack of consistency in methodology to keep track also led to a fallout in collecting crucial data that would highlight the outcomes of the programs.

The audit noted that some data, like how many people are participating and the number of beds, may not even be reliable.