State Budget: Cutting Aid To Hurting Families Increases Homelessness

It doesn’t make sense for the Governor of California to cut financial aid to hurting families, when homelessness is on the rise—especially among families.

But bringing out the scissors to cut the budget is exactly what is happening. CalWORKS—“California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids”—program is a cash assistance and services program for needy families with children. It is basically a program that prevents families from ending up on the streets.

The governor’s budget proposes to eliminate public assistance to these families after five years.

It just doesn’t make sense. Homeless programs are seeing a record number of families becoming homeless. Both the County and the City of Los Angeles are investing millions and millions of dollars to help homeless families get back into housing.

For the state to eliminate public assistance, it means sending more families onto the streets. It would be cheaper in the long run to provide monthly assistance to keep families from losing their housing, rather than have families end up homeless and have the city and county invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build them affordable housing.

What’s cheaper? A monthly assistance check to make sure a family doesn’t end up homeless? Or spend $300,000 to build an affordable housing unit for a homeless family?

You do the math…