How Much Money Goes to the Arts in California

California has roughly 134,000 homeless people, amounting to one-quarter of the nation'due south total homeless population.

In Will $i Billion Spending on California's Homeless Fix the Problem?, California Globe covered a myriad of problems surrounding California's homeless explosion including how tiny houses in Los Angeles haven't worked out equally planned; they became tiny cleft houses. The Homeless encampments forth the sides of levees in Sacramento are now damaging the flood control structures, and as well in the state's Capitol, the homeless live in parks, in tents along rivers, on the streets and in alleys, and sleep at City Hall at nighttime, after police were chastised for chasing them away.

With Gov. Gavin Newsom proposing in his May Upkeep Revise $650 million in grants to homelessness agencies and local government to help fund emergency shelters, housing assist, and new structure, adding upwardly to $ane billion in spending on the homeless in the Golden State, where is the money actually going?

Couple the more than $1 billion in state funding with "LA county and metropolis governments collectively spend an astonishing $1.one billion annually on the costs of dealing with its growing homeless population," Craig Powell ofEye on Sacramento wrote in 2017, and many are request, only where are the billions spent on the homeless actually going?

Sacramento closed the only city-run homeless shelter April 30 after spending $5 million on it. At that place were but 37 homeless people using information technology when it closed. The City is expected to open some other homeless facility in July, "when the Capitol Park Hotel is set to open downtown with upwardly to 180 beds," the Sacramento Bee reported. The Urban center will spend more than than $23 one thousand thousand to open a 180-bed temporary homeless shelter at the Capitol Park Hotel downtown, where more than than 90 elderly and disabled people currently live. They volition be ousted.

The Urban center of Sacramento will likewise spend $11.five million in state funds and private funds to open up a shelter in s Sacramento, and another on a shelter at a Caltrans-endemic lot about the corner of 10 Street and Alhambra. Both of those low-barrier triage shelters will be in tent-like structures with 100 beds each.

One Man's Story

In a downtown Sacramento neighborhood just southward of the metropolis, one grouping of neighbors formed an unofficial grouping to be able to communicate about the ongoing crime, theft, drug-related problems and homeless living on their streets. They taught each other how and when to involve the city and police in the homeless bug, when to phone call for assistance, when to report crimes, and the like. Just they also began to recognize the homeless people living on the streets, and got to know a few.

Several neighbors began to assist 1 young man who told them he wanted to go clean. Initially they were unable to go him any help from the city or canton until he agreed to move into a shelter. But the shelter was full of drug addicts, pedophiles and criminals, and he was trying to stay clean.

Considering he was already on Suboxone, treatment of opioid dependence, and trying to rid himself of his drug addiction, many shelters would not take him. They considered Suboxone a drug and told his neighbor-advocates that until he was "off drugs" including the Suboxone, they couldn't assistance.

So his neighbor-advocates appealed to the other neighbors in the group to contribute funds to help get him a long term cabin room while he sought treatment. Simply finding help was a nightmare.They quickly found out at that place is no bodily process to connect a homeless person seeking help with the necessary services for someone wanting to become off drugs, and off the streets, despite the millions of dollars beingness spent. At that place is not 1 office to go to for a coordination of benefits.

The Labyrinth of Homeless Programs – who are they helping?

The City of Sacramento has had in place the Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources which is nonetheless listed nether the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. All the same, the Sacramento Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources had a name modify and currently operates equally "Next Move Homeless Services | formerly known equally Sacramento Area Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources," just is now a non-profit, not subject to California's open records deed.

The City touts a program chosen Sacramento Steps Forwards, "a 501(c)(iii) nonprofit organization committed to ending homelessness in our region through collaboration, innovation, and connecting people to services," the website says.

The neighbor-advocates for the homeless fellow contacted shelters and many city programs, earlier finally locating a "Navigator" with Sacramento Steps Frontward, located inside the Sacramento Library downtown on the third flooring. She wasn't piece of cake to observe, and the neighbour-advocates wanted to know why she wasn't visiting the homeless camps under the freeways instead of hidden abroad deep inside of the library.

Sacramento Steps Forrad has an income of $14 million, $13 million of which is authorities grants, according to their 2017 IRS Course 990. Since 2013, Sacramento Steps Forrad has received $53,438,945.

The Form 990 shows they grant $10,032,858 to other organizations, and spend $i,341,111 on salaries and $220,055 in benefits, $99,087 in office expenses, $86,279 in travel, $22,521 in conferences and $116,972 in occupancy.

They have ane full time employee who is paid $150,000 annually, making the travel and conference expenses questionable.

On the Grade 990, they say, "Sacramento Steps Forward is responsible for distributing and managing federal funds granted past the United states of america Department of Housing and Urban Development. During 2017, the Organisation passed-through $ten,032,858 in HUD grants to local nonprofit agencies…"

Sacramento Steps Forrad is a passthrough, spending about $4 million in administrative costs in the meantime. Salaries, benefits, travel, conferences and offices total nearly $2 million.

Of their programs, the Winter Sanctuary is a seasonal emergency-shelter programme for homeless men and women.  However, according to their Class 990, this plan is primarily funded past the County of Sacramento.

Side by side Move Homeless Services | formerly known as Sacramento Area Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources, final filed an IRS Form 990 in 2016 showing $5,499,756 in income. The treasurer was reported as making $502,840 in full compensation, and the CFO $208,810, however this income is from "related organizations." The Executive Director makes $106,462.

A deeper dive finds that Next Move Homeless and Goodwill Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada merged in 2014, so Joesph Mendez is President of Goodwill, which pays him $502,840., and Connie Schulze is Main Finance Officer at Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada and is paid $208,810. Both are listed on Side by side Move'south Form 990's as Treasurer and CFO respectively. They are paid handsomely past Goodwill but work for Next Motion, which is but a passthrough for federal funds?

This doesn't add together up. And information technology is particularly frustrating since despite that these are federal funds beingness used, they are going to a non-profit organization which is protected from the California Public Records Human action. By design.

Goodwill Industries has had its own run-ins with the law, which makes it curious why the Urban center of Sacramento would allow its spin-off to partner with Goodwill.

In 2012, Investigative reporter John Hrabe wrote: Goodwill "accepts millions of dollars in government funds, pays its top executives more than half a meg dollars per year in total bounty, while simultaneously paying some of its employees less than the federal minimum wage. Some employees earn just 22 cents per hour."

Hrabe explained:

"The practice of paying sub-minimum wages is legal thanks to a little-known loophole in federal labor police."

"Information technology is appalling that organizations that purport to assist workers with disabilities in chore training, would hold them back past circumventing the standard of living that minimum wage provides other American workers," Andy Voss, president of the Autistic Self Advancement Network of Sacramento, explained to me via email.

In August, Voss' grouping organized a protest of Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada, which according to its near contempo revenue enhancement returns, paid its CEO Joseph Mendez $376,317 in total compensation. A dozen people from the Autistic Self Advancement Network of Sacramento, Capitol People First, Due south Surface area People Get-go and the Supported Life Constitute took part in the Sacramento protestation, which was a office of a nationwide entrada sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind.

As the merger with Next Move and Goodwill Sacramento occurred, Joe Mendez, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada said this: "Goodwill'south mission footprint in Sacramento volition be broadened by its relationship with Next Movement. Our vocational programs will offering Side by side Move's clients opportunities to develop task skills that are portable to other industries. The close mission alignment of our organizations creates a real opportunity to assist Sacramento homeless families movement into stable housing situations and employment."

That was in 2014. Where is the money going?

Meanwhile, Fox News host Tucker Carlson is doing a calendar week long special on homelessness in California. This video features Sacramento.

All photos are screenshots of Carlson's video of Sacramento homeless, except the featured photo, taken nigh the writer's neighborhood.

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Source: https://californiaglobe.com/legislature/homeless-spending-in-ca-where-is-the-money-going/

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