One Train or No Homelessness?

If you have heard one thing about California, it is probably the massive state government spending. In 2008, the citizens of California voted in favor of proposition 1A to build a high speed train that would go between Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the proposition, the government asked to spend $10 billion dollars in bonds and stairs to hell started from there. Now, ten years after, the the California state government has announced that they will be spending $77 billion dollars on the project, and to their own projections by California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), it is estimated to cost taxpayers $98.5 billion and $118 billion. Because our government spends so senselessly, these large figures in billions and trillions fly over our heads and it is really hard to put these figures into context. So, to make it clear how ridiculous these spendings are, we will compare to finding a solution to one of the largest struggles of the USA, if not the largest — homelessness.

Every two years, each city of the US counts how many homeless are out there and the Housing and Urban Development Department puts the census together. As of Dec. 2017, the government study found that, on average, in a single night of 2017, 553,742 people were homeless — a little over half a million people. Now, let’s put every single soul on these streets in a home, shall we?

Home prices vary around the US; Zillow, one of the largest home buying marketplaces, estimated that on average in 2017 a home cost $200,000, and that is not only small houses, but in many states 3 to 4 room houses that were built in the 21st century. Now, we can calculate how much it would cost to have homeless people in a home in vague numbers, but with some detail. Green Door non-profit organization in their research found that 34% of the homeless community are families. This comes down to “184,661 people in families — or 57,971 family households” that are homeless.

With some math, we can figure how they could have used the fast track train money in a better way. Since we know how many family households there are, we can have one house per family. 57,971 (homeless family households in the US) times $200,000 (cost of a house in the US) equals to $11.59 billion dollars. The total of homeless population 553,742 minus the homeless population in families (184,661) gives us 369,081 homeless persons without a home now. Since the estimated budget of the train is $98.5 billion and $118 billion, for the sake of simplicity we would conservatively estimate $100 billion in trail cost (though, we know how much their estimates would grow by the year 2020). $100 billion of the budget minus the $11.59 billion spent on buying each homeless family household a home would leave us with $88.4 billion to solve the homelessness crisis. For the other 369,081 homeless individuals who are not homeless as a family, I believe that giving every two persons a house is sufficient and reasonable for the research since the houses are average size, there would not be a necessity to share a room — in fact, in many states they would be left with a guest room as well. Back to math. 369,081 (non-family homeless individuals) divided by 2 (since two would share a house) equals to 184,540, which is how many more houses we would need until no homelessness in the US. 184,540 times $200,000 (average cost of a house in the US) approximately equals to $37 billion. We had $88.4 billions left after giving each homeless family a house. $88.4billion minus the $37 billion equals to $51.4. The end result is: $48.6 billion dollars to eradicate homelessness in the United States.

The numbers conclude that if we would have the whole homeless population in a comfortable, average size home in the United States would cost less than half the cost of the bullet train that would go between San Francisco and Los Angeles. With half of the budget left, each homeless individual, including children, each member of families would get over $100 thousand dollars from the half of the budget that has not been spent yet! There is enough money for each person to put food on the table for years, to do rehabilitation, training for jobs, volunteer in places to build a resume, and whatever else necessary.

The purpose of this piece is not to push specifically for buying a home for all homeless population in the US, especially not for California buying for all other states’ homeless population. Rather, it is to show you the wasteful spending in our government. While California government has proven itself to be way high up the leaderboard of insufficient and wasteful state governments, this is the biggest issue each state faces, as well as the federal government. America is rich, so rich that we don’t even have an idea due to the massive amount of taxes and the wastefulness of that tax money. Products get taxed multiple times until it reaches your hand — starting from the material producer, the production of the item, to the assembly, to logistics, to the storage, the store, then the sales tax you pay. Every single stage is taxed. The government receives so much money, which is why they can spend such large amount on one project that is irrelevant to most people.

You may ask, why doesn’t the government do such a project as putting every homeless in a house? You would assume that since houses would be bought or built in thousands, it would cost even less since everything would be in bulk. In reality, due to the massive regulation, administrative cost, and the usage of the funds left and right for other things that are unrelated to the project, it would cost, possibly, thirty times as much. Or, the most likely case, the government would spend billions on research, organization, and administrative cost then have the program shut down.

We do have control of what is happening, we can do something. Know your representatives. When it comes comes to wasteful and unnecessary spending, it goes beyond party lines. Both major parties spend recklessly because the money in from our pockets, not theirs. Support more fiscally-conservative minded persons, starting from your city-council to the presidency. When I say fiscally-conservative it does not mean Republican — those days are over. Throw your support behind the right candidates in the primary elections, and yes elections are here again for 2018. Then, elect the right person. As of now, let’s start with registering to vote, if you never have or have had any changes, at www.vote.gov.