{"id":341389,"date":"2026-06-01T13:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/341389\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T13:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:26:11","slug":"sacramento-homelessness-crisis-exposes-americas-accountability-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/341389\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento homelessness crisis exposes America’s accountability collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spencer Pratt blasts failed Democrats on crime, homelessness<\/a> <\/p>\n

Spencer Pratt, Los Angeles mayoral candidate, criticizes current policies by ‘failed’ Democrats on ‘Fox & Friends.’ He discusses his campaign focus on rooting out crime, addressing homelessness with mandatory treatment and rebuilding the city.<\/p>\n

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n

America\u2019s homelessness crisis is routinely framed<\/a> as a housing crisis.<\/p>\n

It is not.<\/p>\n

It is a crisis born from the collapse of accountability at every level of the system. Nowhere are the consequences of that collapse more visible than in California<\/a> \u2014 and especially in its capital city, Sacramento.<\/p>\n

In 2016, California became the only state in the nation to formally adopt the federal government\u2019s Housing First mandate as its sole taxpayer-funded approach to homelessness, directing billions in state and federal<\/a> dollars toward subsidized-for-life apartments with no accountability for sobriety, treatment, or work \u2014 ever.<\/p>\n

WHY\u00a0BLUE\u00a0STATE\u00a0POLICIES\u00a0ARE\u00a0CAUSING\u00a0EVEN\u00a0MORE\u00a0HOMELESSNESS\u00a0IN\u00a0AMERICA<\/a><\/p>\n

Sacramento County followed in 2017, embracing the housing-only model, despite repeated warnings from frontline providers that housing alone would never adequately address the addiction<\/a>, mental illness, trauma or behavioral health challenges that so often accompany homelessness.<\/p>\n

Those warnings proved tragically accurate.<\/p>\n

The problem was never simply homelessness and the solution was never simply apartments.<\/p>\n

Under this mandate, homelessness rose nearly 35% nationally. In California, it surged 40%<\/a>. In Sacramento County, the homeless population more than doubled.<\/p>\n

NEWSOM\u00a0JUST MADE\u00a0A\u00a0CATASTROPHIC MISTAKE\u00a0ON\u00a0CALIFORNIA\u2019S\u00a0HOMELESSNESS DISASTER<\/a><\/p>\n

But even more alarming than the numbers was what society increasingly learned to tolerate: human deterioration, environmental destruction, exploding encampments and escalating public<\/a> disorder, all while accountability and expectations were systematically stripped from the system itself.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the problem was never simply homelessness, and the solution was never simply apartments.<\/p>\n

Waterways, parks and sidewalks did not become wastelands because of a lack of housing. They were devastated by a policy framework that systematically removed recovery, restoration and accountability from the center of homelessness policy.<\/p>\n

NEWSOM JUST TOOK A PAGE FROM TRUMP. BUT THERE\u2019S MORE TO DO TO KEEP CALIFORNIA A GOLDEN STATE<\/a><\/p>\n

What followed was entirely predictable: tens of thousands of needles and shopping carts strewn across rivers, canals and public spaces as encampments became government-sanctioned waiting rooms<\/a> for permanent housing that often never comes.<\/p>\n

As vulnerable human beings are left idle for years without treatment or purpose, social decay takes root \u2014 and what should shock the public conscience becomes normalized.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Most heartbreaking of all was our time walking Sacramento\u2019s streets, where we saw human beings visibly deteriorate physically, mentally and spiritually while passersby barely looked up \u2014 no shock, no outrage, no gasp.<\/p>\n

This is what we saw in Sacramento last week, as a colleague and I spent one day there working with the River City Waterway Alliance \u2014 a volunteer group made up largely of retirees who have quietly become one of the last lines of defense protecting Sacramento\u2019s waterways from environmental collapse. We spent another day working with the Sacramento County Sheriff\u2019s HOT Team, which removed an estimated 5,000 pounds of waste from a canal that the team had fully cleared just one month earlier.<\/p>\n

LA COUNTY HOMELESS SPENDING UNDER THE MICROSCOPE OF NEWLY APPOINTED US ATTORNEY<\/a><\/p>\n

One conclusion became impossible to escape: America\u2019s homelessness crisis is, at its core, a crisis of zero accountability \u2014 and Sacramento is the telltale sign of what happens when accountability collapses, ideology replaces outcomes, and leaders refuse to confront the consequences<\/a> of their own policies.<\/p>\n

\"California <\/p>\n

An aerial view of the California State Capitol on February 01, 2023 in Sacramento, California. (Justin Sullivan\/Justin Sullivan)<\/p>\n

Realities in Sacramento alone paint a staggering picture:<\/p>\n

Over the past three years, Alliance volunteers removed nearly 4 million pounds of waste from Sacramento waterways \u2014 including 29,000 needles, 19,000 shopping carts and more than 70,000 batteries.<\/p>\n

CALIFORNIA IS BROKE, BUT IT\u2019S NOT TOO LATE FOR THE REST OF US<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the death rate among the homeless population more than doubled over that same period.<\/p>\n

In one year, Sacramento County\u2019s Sheriff\u2019s HOT Team visited nearly 4,600 camps, closed over 1,300 of them, and cleared 3 million pounds of trash from homeless encampments.<\/p>\n

Yet as volunteers and law enforcement<\/a> struggle to contain the fallout, Sacramento\u2019s homeless population grew by another 13% last year alone \u2014 an additional 1,000 individuals \u2014 further compounding a crisis the region was already failing to keep pace with.<\/p>\n

SEC SCOTT TURNER: BLAME DRUGS AND MENTAL ILLNESS, NOT PRESIDENT TRUMP, FOR THE CHAOS GRIPPING OUR STREETS<\/a><\/p>\n

The deterioration is accelerating far faster than it can be contained, and the sheer scale of the destruction is almost impossible to comprehend unless you witness it firsthand.<\/p>\n

\"California <\/p>\n

California Gov. Gavin Newsom looks on during a bill signing event related to redrawing the state\u2019s congressional maps on Aug. 21, 2025, in Sacramento, California.\u00a0 (Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

But most heartbreaking of all was our time walking Sacramento\u2019s streets, where we saw human beings visibly deteriorate physically, mentally and spiritually while passersby barely looked up \u2014 no shock, no outrage, no gasp. In Sacramento, this level of suffering and societal breakdown is now tolerated.<\/p>\n

Yet none of this was inevitable.<\/p>\n

THIS IS HOW WE’LL KNOW IF CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM’S EPIPHANY ON ‘LIBERAL GOVERNANCE’ IS REAL<\/a><\/p>\n

For years, volunteers with the River City Waterway Alliance begged local and state leaders to confront the accelerating environmental destruction unfolding across Sacramento\u2019s waterways. At the very same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> vetoed legislation that would have created a sober living housing set-aside \u2014 despite pleas from individuals struggling with addiction, frontline providers and mayors across California who warned the state desperately needed more recovery-focused options within its homelessness system.<\/p>\n

To their credit, the city and county are now responding. But repeated pleas to the governor, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and even the Sacramento chapter of the Sierra Club \u2014 organizations with real power and publicly stated missions tied directly to these issues \u2014 were met with silence.<\/p>\n

Crickets.<\/p>\n

At the very same time, the Sheriff\u2019s HOT Team, which is actively containing the destruction, now faces the chopping block as county leaders grapple with a $100 million budget deficit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of the current system and the elected officials leading it.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, Sacramento stands as a warning to the rest of the nation about what happens when accountability is stripped away, when<\/a> leaders refuse to confront the consequences of their own failed policies, and when voters continue returning those same leaders to power even as human suffering, environmental destruction, public disorder and societal collapse accelerate in plain sight.<\/p>\n

That is the real crisis. Not simply homelessness. Not simply housing.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the collapse of accountability itself.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM MICHELE STEEB<\/a><\/p>\n

Michele Steeb is\u00a0the\u00a0founder of Free Up Foundation and author of “Answers Behind\u00a0the\u00a0RED DOOR: Battling\u00a0the\u00a0Homeless Epidemic<\/a>,” based\u00a0on\u00a0her 13 years as CEO of\u00a0Northern California\u2019s largest program\u00a0for\u00a0homeless women and children. She is a visiting fellow with the Discovery Institute\u2019s Fix Homelessness Initiative. Follow them\u00a0on\u00a0Twitter: @DiscoveryCWP and @SteebMichele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spencer Pratt blasts failed Democrats on crime, homelessness Spencer Pratt, Los Angeles mayoral candidate, criticizes current policies by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2780,7,457,19262,1011,975,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-341389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-addiction","tag-california","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-homeless-crisis","tag-housing","tag-opinion","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}