Op-Ed: Riverside Cannot Tax Its Way Out of California’s Homelessness Crisis

Summary: Riverside taxpayers should meet the City Manager’s latest homelessness propaganda post with a heaping dose of skepticism. California has the highest homelessness rate in America. We cannot tax our way to better results and Riverside residents deserve honesty about failed government policies before they’re asked to pay more.

First, some facts.

Riverside taxpayers should meet the City Manager’s latest homelessness propaganda post with a heaping dose of skepticism. The post heralds the newest homeless numbers like a victory lap, cites anecdotes about two homeless women who are thriving thanks to government services, and finishes with a call for more tax dollars so bureaucracy can “coordinate” more services.

Minus the hopeful last paragraph, what’s fact-checking Santa Claus left out?

California has by far the highest homelessness rate in America. As of last January, California had about 187,000 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2024.That’s about 28% of the nation’s homeless population despite having only about 12% of the nation’s total population. Our statewide homelessness rate was 48 people per 10,000 residents compared with 23 people per 10,000 residents nationally.

The City Manager quotes “facts and data.” My question for Riverside taxpayers is this: when has government told you the truth about homelessness?

HUD’s once-yearly Point-in-Time count of homeless individuals is what it sounds like, an imperfect accounting of homelessness on a single night in January. Riverside County’s own press release on homeless counts admits the count is “just a snapshot in time.” HUD itself notes CoC-submitted counts can vary “considerably in how they are conducted and produce unreliable and inconsistent information.”

When has government presented any information about homelessness — or homelessness solutions — in all its complicated, ugly glory?

The State of California has spent billions upon billions of dollars fighting homelessness with zero proof it works. After dedicating nearly $24 billion of taxpayer dollars to homelessness and housing-related programs over five fiscal years, California State Auditor issued a report last year exposing how California STILL lacks “a standardized method to track homelessness spending and performance across programs.”

For crying out loud!

“I can’t believe we still don’t have this information,” reads the auditor’s own report. “Without this information, the Department cannot determine which approaches are cost-effective.”

Subtract that carefully constructed faith in government from your worldview. If the government can’t know where homeless dollars go after throwing billions at the problem for decades, what we’re really looking at is evidence of institutionalized drift.

This matters, folks. Riverside is not on the sidelines issuing lazy press releases about homelessness. The City Manager’s office began shopping tax proposals with Riverside City Council earlier this year.

The City sent Council a tax memo back in March featuring potential dates and concepts for tax measures including notice that the City intends to put a notice on the November ballot asking voters to extend and increase Measure Z, the city’s sales tax.

The City’s memo from March plainly states, yes, they want to extend and increase the sales tax.

Mindful of this critical takeaway? City Hall wants you to solve problems. But they also want you to pay more taxes to solve problems.

Tell you what, the costs may add up differently for some residents. But here’s what else City Hall isn’t telling you.

Taxpayer money is not Riverside’s problem. Riverside spent about $1.45 billion per year on its adopted biennial budget last year. City Hall’s own April budget letter demands City Hall make “strategic cost reductions” JUST TO STABILIZE GROWING FUTURE BUDGET DEFICITS caused by more expenses and so-called “soft revenues.”

In plain English, City Hall can’t stop budget deficits from growing without cuts because taxes are already too high.

Tax dollars are allocated, spent, and on their way out the door LONG BEFORE City Hall asks voters to raise taxes again. If City leadership can’t balance the budget while also asking you to pay more, residents should ask one simple question: Where did the money go?

Why on Earth would anyone think throwing more tax dollars at the problem will produce different results?

Ask any renter. Ask any family who can’t afford a downpayment in Riverside. Talk to would-be homeowners dealing with California’s affordability crisis and you’ll hear the same sad stories about government failure. Over and over.

City Hall wants you to pay thousands more per year in taxes.At the same time, City Hall says it wants to “solve problems.” That doesn’t sound honest. It sounds convenient.

California’s marginal state income tax rate is 13.3%. We have the 9th highest tax ether and our statewide tax system ranks 48th in Tax Foundation’s overall state tax competitiveness index. The housing shortage is decades in the making.Housing costs in California have outpaced inflation for decades. California ranked 49th worst among states in housing units per capita and our continuing statewide housing audit found California lost about $140 billion per year because not enough people can afford to live here.

None of this is solved by rising tax burdens either.Californians already pay more to live here. Businesses pay more to hire us. Anyone paying taxes in California already pays through the nose.

There will come a time and place where government requires more resources to address a problem. But when taxpayers are already paying through the nose, government’s answer shouldn’t always be more taxes.

The burden of proof should be on politicians and city officials who want your tax dollars to prove they can spend it wisely, prove programs work with real data measuring success, and CUT FUNDING TO PROGRAMS THAT DON’T WORK OR REFUSE TO CIVILIZE THEMSELVES BEFORE ASKING YOU TO PAY MORE TAXES.

Oh, City Manager post highlights another useful omission from the state’s homelessness narrative..

When government discusses homelessness it focuses too much on prevention subsidies and temporary service expansions while giving little-to-no attention to addiction, untreated mental illness, street disorder, and grossly incompetent governance.

Last year UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative released a study based on surveys of homeless Californians showing 48% of surveyed adults experiencing homelessness had at least one complex behavioral health issue, 35% of homeless adults reported using illicit drugs regularly, and scores of homeless Californians who wanted treatment during their “current homelessness episode” were unable to get the help they needed.

Politicians want you to believe homelessness will disappear if they use softer language and shovel more tax dollars at our state’s largest nonprofits. Don’t believe them.

People need housing help. But people experiencing homelessness also need structure, treatment, and accountability. Compassion without accountability is not compassion. It’s the abolition of consequences. And that’s not policy.

Speaking of things being dressed up as policy…ask your local city officials about the so-called “homeless industrial complex.”

I know, polarizing term right? But hear me out. The concept behind that phrase is REAL. Too many organizations, consultants, bureaucrats, and politicians have built careers and six-figure salaries dependent on managing homelessness rather than actually ending it.

If the State of California can’t track homelessness program outcomes after spending billions of dollars.. If our cities continue to raise taxes on working families as affordability declines statewide…If politicians and bureaucrats double-down on studies, grants, and new programs with new press releases every time they fail to meet homelessness reduction goals.. They may truly mean well. But you know what word you’re looking for?

Skepticism. Nice skepticism based on actual facts we can access ourselves. Californians shouldn’t be forced to choose between barbarity and bankrupting ourselves. Here’s how we stop failing:

California should aggressively limit barriers to building new housing, enforce our laws against camping in public and drug trafficking NOW, massively expand treatment capacity for addiction and serious mental illness, mandate governments CONTRACT FOR HOMELESSNESS PROGRAM RESULTS (ends homelessness in 90 days or your money back), publish local homeless dashboards breaking down exits to stability, returns to homelessness, treatment completion rates, and actual cost per successful outcome, and start telling Riverside residents the truth about taxes.

No one wants to spend billions without results. But promising results then giving shelter providers and service professionals free rein to do as they please year-after-year is not accountability. Budgeting like your city depends on it is.