In March’s primary election, Californians will be asked to vote on Proposition 1, a ballot measure proposing $6.4 billion in additional funding for homeless-related services, including new treatment beds and "permanent supportive housing units" (otherwise known as indefinitely subsidized single-room occupancies). The measure is the brainchild of Governor Newsom, who claims the money will go a long way towards getting California’s almost 180,000 homeless people “off the streets, out of tents and into treatment.”

This is, of course, utter insanity. But it’s worth looking briefly at the fine print of the legislation to understand just how insane it is. Of the $6.4 billion Prop 1 seeks to wrest from taxpayers, it will spend $4.4 billion on funding around 6,800 addiction/behavioral health treatment beds, which amounts to an average cost of almost $650,000 per bed — an obscene sum even by California’s distorted standards. The remaining $2 billion will be allocated to fund various housing projects, including the conversion of hotels and motels into homeless housing, with the eventual goal of opening 4,350 new units — amounting to an average cost of around $460,000 per unit. But these new units will house less than 3% of the state’s total homeless population. By this math, to fully “solve” homelessness in California, it would take a dollar amount — $320 billion — that slightly exceeds China’s entire defense budget.