California’s homeless crisis programs need more accountability
California’s homeless crisis has become not only a financial catastrophe, but an overwhelming burden for our communities as well. There is an unsurmountable growth of individuals becoming homeless. Over $24 billion has been allocated over the last five years for homelessness and housing programs. These programs lack transparency for how our tax dollars are spent. My question is, where is the money being spent?
In Lake County we can see our local parks, bus stops, store fronts and communities being overran by homeless with mental health and drug abuse problems. Programs should be able to demonstrate their impacts and improvements with all this financial assistance, but instead we have very little to show for all the billions of middle-class dollars being spent. California’s resources are vast but, without accountability, we are failing both the taxpayers and the homeless we aim to help.
Homelessness is not just a crisis of housing but one of mental health and addiction. With more and more people choosing to be homeless because of an addiction. it makes it a harder issue to solve. Drug addiction has always been an overwhelming problem in Lake County. A family member of mine who had a college education, career in healthcare, and a warm upkept home lost it all after making the slow decline into prescription drug abuse. She continued abusing through all the support, counseling, and opportunities to stop until she was unable to take care of herself anymore. Without our help she would be homeless. A classmate from High School, with a loving family and home, chose a life as a young homeless man by abusing meth and alcohol.
These are the issues that need to show proof of success with the all the vast investment in mental health services’ support. Tackling these mental health roots requires real reform, not just writing larger checks of the tax payers’ hard earned money. Californians deserve to see real results in these investments. results—in the decline of mental health, homelessness, not empty promises.
—Annalisa Williams, Upper Lake
Healthcare under Trump’s incoming administration
The 12/6 page one article discusses what might happen to three million people’s healthcare if Trump cuts the expansion of Medicaid that started in 2014. It’s hard to believe that there exist conservative policy groups that say “Medicaid costs too much and covers too many people.” The Kaiser Family Foundation found that on average, the per capita cost of Medicaid was $6052 contrasted to private insurance which cost $7,752.
In Lake County, 35,824 residents, or 52.7% of county population, are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the State’s version of Medicaid. In 2024, 10,664 Lake County persons 19-64 were covered by the Obamacare Medicaid 2014 expansion.
The Medicaid expansion that conservative policy groups want Trump to take away from us is not some government spending excess. It is 3 million of us suddenly being thrown to the wolves. It is over 10,000 of 64,360 Lake County residents.
What are these persons to do when they get sick? What happens to them long term when the preventative services Medicaid provides is taken away? They go to the emergency rooms that by law are required to treat them as part of their grant funding. The hospital charges their treatment at rates far higher than a regular visit meant to catch a medical condition before it becomes a crisis. Too often they have to write off the cost of service which increases rates for the rest of us.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) cites evidence that the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults prevented at least 19,200, 55 to 64 year old persons from dying. Conversely, 15,600 older adults died prematurely because of some states decision NOT to expand Medicaid. Medicaid expansion has helped save over 60,000 lives. These are not just abstract numbers, they represent our co-workers, our friends and family.
When drilling down to Lake County, it’s hard to grasp the logic behind “conservative policy groups” efforts to take away healthcare from 10,000 of us. The fiscal axe these groups want to wield has real world consequences. It lands on the necks of real people, low-income, employed working persons.
For those who championed Trump’s election who benefit from Obamacare and Medicaid expansion, be careful what you wish for. For the rest of us, be really clear about what happens as the new administration takes over the executive branch of our federal government.
—Jeffrey J Olson, Clearlake Oaks
