$24 billion spent on LA homeless
California spent $24 billion on the homeless problem and no one could account for where the money went; Governor Newsom vetoed an audit of the spending.
Where this was said
The Homeless Industrial Complex and California's $24 Billion Nowhere
At 14:37 · chapter starts 13:35
Taylor Sheridan makes a clean and cutting argument about nonprofit dysfunction: if your organization exists to solve homelessness, the day you solve it is the day your money and relevance disappear. So the incentive is always to grow the crisis — make it bigger, louder, more visible — in order to justify more funding. California is the perfect case study: $24 billion spent on the homeless problem, no accounting for it, and when a proper audit was attempted, Gavin Newsom vetoed it. Rogan adds the context that someone had done a breakdown showing how much money the people running LA's homeless programs are actually paid — extraordinary personal salaries from a 'charitable' enterprise. They pivot to the high-speed rail system — a billion-dollar project that has produced exactly one mile of track — to illustrate how the same logic of performative problem-solving manifests in infrastructure. Sheridan sums it up neatly: these are performative entrepreneurs, people who pitch a government-funded solution and then profit from keeping the problem alive forever. The section closes with both men discussing Portland's ballot measure — championed by a vegan substitute teacher from Southern California — that would effectively ban hunting, fishing, and ranching across Oregon.
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