West
Newsom's homelessness council blames local governments for failing to track billions spent on crisis
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s hub for tackling the homelessness crisis shifted the blame to local municipalities after a state audit report found the council failed to track how billions of dollars have been spent trying to tackle the crisis in the last five years.
A senior spokesperson for the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CICH), which coordinates homeless programs across the state, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday the audit’s findings “highlight the significant progress made in recent years to address homelessness at the state level, including the completion of a statewide assessment of homelessness programs.”
The spokesperson added local governments “are primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness.”
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Homeless encampments line the streets in Oakland, California, on March 15. (DWS for Fox News Digital)
“The Council continues to improve its ability to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent judiciously and effectively, including by providing technical support to local jurisdictions to help align data standards and reporting,” the spokesperson said.
But the state auditor found that nine state agencies have collectively spent $24 billion in state funding over the past five years administering at least 30 programs dedicated to tackling the homelessness crisis, and said Newsom’s homeless council “is responsible for coordinating, developing, and evaluating the efforts of these nine agencies.”
The state’s independent audit, released Tuesday, noted CICH is required by law to report its finances related to all state‑funded homelessness programs, but stopped doing so in 2021.
Over the past five years, the CICH didn’t consistently track whether the money actually improved the situation, the audit concluded. It also failed to collect and evaluate outcome data for these programs due to the lack of a consistent method.
In a letter to the governor, the state auditor wrote that “the state must do more to assess the cost-effectiveness of its homelessness programs.”
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Oakland, California, remains plagued by homelessness as nearby businesses close their doors due to safety concerns. (DWS for Fox News Digital)
Despite billions spent on homelessness and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, the problem didn’t improve in many cities, according to the state auditor’s report. Since 2013, homelessness has jumped more than 53%. In 2023, the state estimated about 180,000 people in the state are homeless, which is more than anywhere else in the U.S.
“Further, it has not aligned its action plan for addressing homelessness with its statutory goals, nor has it ensured that it collects accurate, complete, and comparable financial and outcome information from homelessness programs,” according to the state audit.
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Homelessness in California under Gov. Gavin Newsom has increased from 151,000 in 2019 to 181,000 in 2024. (Fox)
Some data regarding the number of program participants and bed inventory in the state system might not be accurate or reliable, the audit found.
The CICH was created in 2017 to help track the state’s homelessness data, but it has produced only one report on homeless spending since its inception.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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HONOLULU — The latest lava fountaining episode of an erupting Hawaii volcano reached 1,000 feet high Tuesday, prompting temporary closures at a national park and part of an important highway because of falling glassy volcanic fragments, including ash.
Kilauea, on Hawaii’s Big Island, has been dazzling residents and visitors for more than year with an on-and-off eruption that periodically sends fountains of lava soaring into the sky.
The fountaining that began Tuesday morning marked the eruption’s 43rd episode since it began in December 2024. A livestream showed two fountains of bright-red lava and smoke. It’s unclear how long the fountaining will last. Some episodes have lasted a few days and others a few hours.
Like other times, the molten rock was confined within Kilauea’s summit crater inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and hasn’t threatened homes or buildings.
But the lava fountains were creating trouble for neighboring communities and a highway where the volcanic fragments and ash, known as tephra, was falling. The tephra prompted temporary closures at the national park around the summit and a partial closure of Highway 11, an important route around the island, on either side of the park.
Hawaii County officials also opened a shelter at a district gymnasium for residents and tourists impacted by the road closure or falling tephra. There were no people using the shelter soon after it opened, said Tom Callis, a county spokesperson.
The National Weather Service issued an ashfall warning.
Volcanic tephra can irritate eyes, skin and the respiratory system, according to county officials. Tephra also can clog and cause other problems with water catchment collection systems, which are common in some parts of the Big Island, officials said.
Ash fell so heavily during a previous fountaining episode that some communities needed help from county civil defense workers to clean up ash that coated their homes, Callis said.
Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes.
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Smith’s employees are packing 5,000 meal kits for Clark County students through a partnership with Move for Hunger and Communities in Schools of Southern Nevada.
The event took place on March 10 at Decker Elementary School.
About 270 leaders from across seven states are also participating in building the kits. The donation is valued at approximately $50,000.
Feed The Need: Helping Southern Nevadans fight food insecurity
In the past year, Smith’s and its customers provided more than 16 million meals to nonprofit hunger-relief organizations throughout Nevada through donations.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
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