A Second Grader Should Not Have to Ask, ‘Is He Dead?’

Every morning, parents walk their children to school past people shooting up on the sidewalk. Men. Women. People slumped over on the curb. Some are so still you can’t tell if they’re breathing.

And then comes the hardest part: the questions.

• “Why is that man sleeping on the ground?”
• “Why is she putting that in her arm?”
• “Is he dead?”
• “Are we safe?”

Try explaining fentanyl, addiction, mental illness, and government failure to a second grader before 8 a.m.

Try telling your child this is normal. Because it isn’t.

Our kids should not grow up stepping over needles on the way to school.

We can care about people struggling with addiction and still say this is unacceptable.

Children should feel safe walking to school. That is not a partisan statement. It is the bare minimum of a functioning society.

This should not be the backdrop of childhood.

And yet, after nearly a decade of escalating crisis, it remains exactly that. 

Since 2019, the state has provided about $37 billion in funding for housing-and homelessness-related programs, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office 2025-2026 budget overview. Over the same period, the homeless population increased by about 30,000 people, reaching more than 181,000 statewide. Adjusted for the 2019 count, that spending amounts to roughly $160,000 per homeless person over five years. With that level of investment, measurable progress should have followed. It did not.

The state auditor has made clear why. California has failed to consistently track spending and evaluate outcomes. Homeless and government agencies lack reliable data on ongoing costs and on whether programs are meeting statutory goals. 

In several major initiatives, basic performance metrics are incomplete or nonexistent. Without transparency, there is no accountability. Without accountability, there is no correction.

At the same time, affordability pressures remain unaddressed. Nearly 1.9 million renter households in California spend at least half of their pretax income on rent. Many are one missed paycheck away from losing housing. 

Part of the problem is that California makes it extraordinarily expensive to build housing of any kind. Before a shovel hits the ground, builders face tens of thousands of dollars in permitting fees, development charges, architectural reviews, environmental compliance costs, and mandatory design mandates. Local development fees alone average around $30,000 per unit in California, compared to roughly $800 in Texas.

The numbers are stark. Jason Ward, co-director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness, notes that the average apartment costs about $150,000 to build in Texas. In California, the same unit costs roughly $430,000, nearly three times as much. For publicly subsidized affordable housing, costs can exceed four times those of similar units in other states.

Ward also points out that soft costs, such as engineering, financing, and local government fees, are many times higher in California. Approval timelines stretch past four years, double the timeline in states like Texas. Time carries interest costs. It carries labor costs. It carries land costs. Every delay compounds the final rent required to make a project viable.

Meanwhile, when it comes to building homeless projects, the state routinely approves housing that costs $800,000 to $1 million per 220-square-foot unit in high-cost markets. Where is the common sense in that? This approach crowds out funding for mental health treatment, addiction services, and early intervention.

The crisis extends into classrooms as well. Nearly 300,000 California students are experiencing homelessness, living in cars, shelters, or unstable situations. Graduation rates for these students lag far behind statewide averages. Yet dedicated state funding remains limited and inconsistent.

California has the fourth-largest economy in the world, the highest tax burden in the nation, and the highest poverty rate. Spending alone is not a strategy. Data, discipline, and measurable outcomes are. Until those are in place, the sidewalk scenes outside elementary schools will remain the most honest report card of public policy failure.