Homeless Shelter Coming To A Neighborhood Near You

The Orange County Register announced that Fullerton Interfaith has received a $1-million grant from California taxpayers to help ease homelessness in Fullerton. The article, which bears the humorous and pessimistic title "Grant could help homeless families", is short and simplistic. That is, the article doesn't say much about where the shelter will go or any of the particulars which were likely written into the grant.

A quick online search for real property assets in the name of Fullerton Interfaith yielded adjoining addresses on Amerige at Richman.


Southwest corner of Amerige at Richman, in Fullerton, California. 

 Since the article states that the property to be used is "vacant land", it is unclear if this is the same site as pictured here on the left. 

It is quite possible that Fullerton Interfaith has acquired other property recently which has not shown up in the database I used. 

The grant funding comes from Proposition 1C (2006) funding.  Prop 1C was part of a massive taxpayer's credit card scheme (see Props 1B-1E from 2006) designed to borrow $37.3 BILLION! 

The State borrowed the money and now you voters can see where it has taken them: into the State of Financial Ruin. 

One of the loudest critics of these ballot initiatives, in particular 1C, was Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.  DeVore, now retired from the State Assembly (and was one of my early campaign supporters), argued that the end result of the initiative did not justify the means.  He knew the vast sums of money ($3 BILLION for Prop 1C) would not make housing more affordable (a farce by any standard).  DeVore also knew that the initiatives would force higher taxes. 

Notice that the argument against the spending was never about ending, preventing, or combating homelessness.  I think most minds can come together on the notion that homelessness, whatever the catalyst an individual's demise, is never good.  Certainly none of us would relish watching a loved one toil in the despair of loosing a job and eventually their home.  In fact, the argument against the initiative was that we were BORROWING the money to "fix" what many believe to be a socially engineered problem.   

For those emotionally invested in homelessness issues, borrowing billions of dollars, no matter the long-term cost, is not just "worth it" but absolutely necessary for the preservation of humanity.  As much as I may want to agree with that premise, I am forced to recognize that all of the money in the world will not end homelessness, for there are so many causes which are beyond our control.

My family and I do what we can, when we can, for those who need it.  We give through various organizations knowing that the money is being put to good use with next to no overhead- unlike the State of California. 

Imagine if each of the 208,675 full-time state employees (not including the Cal State University employees) each had 1% of their collective $1,469,566,618 monthly gross wages go towards homelessness grants.  We could solve a lot of socially engineered economic problems.  But would it be fair to burden only State employees?  Perhaps it would be fairer to tax some other minority group?  Who should pay to house the houseless and where should their temporary homes be placed? 

Whatever answers you may have for those questions I am just happy to see that this is a community group, albeit largely taxpayer funded, doing the charitable work instead of full-time public employees.  Not that one is undeserving of the other, but the long-term cost associated with using public employees far exceeds the short-term charitable public benefit they would serve.