Posted on 08/17/2019 10:19:14 AM PDT by JeepersFreepers
You already read the headline, but that’s not even the worst part.
Yes, Austin City Council is spending a record-high $62.7 million this year to try and solve homelessness, equivalent to giving roughly $28,000 to each homeless person in the city. But the more startling fact is that Austin officials are leading the city down the same dangerous path San Francisco has already journeyed—a path Austinites should be wary not to travel.
Before peering down the road toward Austin’s future, let’s look around for a moment at the crisis happening right now in Texas’ capital city. The homeless population is rapidly rising, up 5 percent a year for the last two years; the number of those unsheltered on the streets is the highest it has been in nearly a decade. And you may have even noticed people camping in the middle of public areas all across town, thanks to a recent decision by the city council that has spread contention throughout the community.
We already know city council’s plan to solve this whole problem is to spend a lot of money, but instead of just writing a $28,000 check to each homeless person, they’re sending pallets of tax dollars through a cash-eating maze of city administration and bureaucracy, hoping that a fraction of it eventually comes out the other side to the people on the streets.
Will that plan work? Enter San Francisco, the potential Austin-of-the-future.
If you look just past the shiny Golden Gate Bridge, you’ll see one of the worst homelessness disasters in the United States. The Bay City has recently become infamous for homeless crime, used syringes, and human feces littering the entire downtown area (the city even has a designated “Poop Patrol”).
San Francisco’s city government created a bold plan to solve everything, a plan Austin is now following: Spend lots of citizens’ money.
From 2016 to 2020, their city government will have spent over $1.5 billion on homelessness. If you do the math of that four-year spending based on the current homeless population of 9,784, that’s over $153,000 on each person.
Yet despite San Francisco’s mind-boggling payouts per person, the situation for those on the street—and the rest of the city—has only deteriorated.
Indeed, the homeless population has grown by nearly 7 percent in just the last two years (and 14 percent since 2013), with the vast majority of those new homeless being hometown folks. Oh, and the dangerous turmoil on the streets downtown has only intensified.
In short, the plan isn’t working. San Francisco’s city government has thrown a bewildering amount of money and programs at this problem, yet the landscape remains in shambles and littered with feces.
Back in Austin, where citizens are beginning to see more visible vagrancy and crime downtown, our city officials are trying the same exact plan as San Francisco with a fraction of the money. How should they expect that to end? (Hint: According to a city audit, Austin officials are already doing a dismal job fixing this problem with the money they do have, and the city is only just beginning their planned spending sprees.)
The path San Francisco has traveled—the path of enormous government spending—has ended in chaos, but Austinites can protect their own quality of life by telling their city officials to turn around now.
I am glad to see that others are waking up to this issue.
“Just pay for it.”. Give them all tiny homes.
I worked for a public employee union in California for years, and believe me, they are very well paid and retire better than most private workers.
Philanthropy using public tax money is a very lucrative business. Pitt of that $28 million spent I bet only $1 to 2 million reachs the intended beneficiaries while the rest is vacumed up by politicians and the well-connected.
If the question is “How do we attract more homeless people?,” then, yes, that is the answer.
Austin was truly Texas until Governor Perry welcomed CA businesses into Texas and Austin in particular.
Stephen Adler should stop being "nice" and get the city to pass an ordinance that says if you don't have a job and a place to stay, you can't live in Austin, period.
I can hear the bleeding hears now, well just (ask Alaska).
Vagrancy can be a seasonal thing however, should not be an option in any city or state.
I’ll give the ‘homeless’ credit where it’s due. I tried camping in Northern Alabama during the summer years ago, and that part of the state is MUCH COOLER than Austin in the summer.
Still too hot for me...would never try that again. Yet the ‘homeless’ seem to thrive in that sauna.
I think one will find that the money is thrown at all kinds of folks having nothing actually to do with fixing the problem.
Anyone who really cares ought to watch Seattle is Dying on YouTube. Very sad but revealing. Most of the homeless are druggies or mentally ill or both. It would be smarter to throw money at increased law enforcement and rehab facilities.
I not too long ago had the opportunity to fly north from downtown DC in a helicopter at low level with a number of colleagues. When we compared notes after the flight, we all remarked on the very large number of very large mansions hidden away in the Maryland landscape. These are not purchased by folks on government salaries, however lavish. It takes skimming off of a large government contract to come up with that kind of money.
This ploy is already in effect but from Demo cities to others, especially to Cali and other “destinations’
They buy a Homeless person a one way bus ticket and then it is the problem of the new location to handle. As the Network shifts people to other sites to help buttress the “Social Welfare” system there monies are siphoned to them in the form of Bureaucracies that spend insane amounts of money on people and programs that do little more than band aid programs mostly for photo ops. Enough of this positioning draws in “Federal aid” (see Baltimore) that fattens the coffers of the State to utilize with virtually no oversight to determine the effect and actual value of them. These systems are rife with patronage and payoffs as they operate in typically a “non profit” mode with big salaries for the blowhards running them with no real impact and most of it spent on planning and salaries versus any real action at the place it is needed.
In SF it’s about $60k per bum.
The people in these cities have elected the officials who make these decisions. They know the results. Lemmings gotta be Lemmings.
Now you know where all those people went that left California went two years ago.
Re open state mental institutions nationwide.
“Yet despite San Francisco’s mind-boggling payouts per person, the situation for those on the street—and the rest of the city—has only deteriorated.”
If you feed them, house them, clothe them, let them poop on the street, give them drugs, pay them... they will come.
Do not let them make you care!
But that would take time, effort, and intellect. Those qualities are not highly valued by those who believe that socialism magically solves all problems and brings utopia.
Oh, in my officer education, I was taught about the military decision making process. It would be a great skill set for government bureaucrats and politicians, especially the leftist ones.
Just give them $20,000 apiece. Most will die from booze/drugs in a short time.
Austin has been the SF of Texas for a long time. I call it Hanoi in the Hill Country
The Democrats don’t want to fix problems. They want to make money off of them.
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