Sacramento's homelessness crisis exposes the breakdown of America's accountability

America's homelessness crisis is often framed as a housing crisis.

It is not.

It is a tragedy born out of the collapse of accountability at all levels of the system. Nowhere are the effects of that fall more apparent than in California — and especially in its capital, Sacramento.

In 2016, California became the only state in the country to formally adopt the federal government's Housing First mandate as the only taxpayer-funded solution to homelessness, directing billions of federal and state dollars to subsidized housing without accountability for sobriety, treatment, or employment — ever.

WHY BLUE NATION'S POLICIES ARE CAUSING SO MUCH UNTIMELY AMERICA

Sacramento County followed suit in 2017, adopting a housing-only model, despite repeated warnings from leading providers that housing alone will never adequately address the addiction, mental illness, trauma or behavioral health challenges that often accompany homelessness.

Those warnings proved to be sadly accurate.

The problem was not just homelessness and the solution was not just places to live.

Under this mandate, homelessness has increased by nearly 35 percent nationally. In California, it's up 40%. In Sacramento County, the number of homeless people has doubled.

NEWSOM JUST MADE A FABULOUS MISTAKE ON CALIFORNIA'S HOMELESSNESS PROBLEM.

But more frightening than the numbers is what society continued to learn to tolerate: depopulation, environmental destruction, exploding camps and increasing social unrest, while accountability and expectations were systematically removed from the system itself.

This is because the problem was not just homelessness, and the solution was not just places to live.

Waterways, parks and roads have not become wastelands due to lack of housing. They are frustrated with the policy framework that systematically removed recovery, restoration and accountability from the center of homelessness policy.

NEWSOM JUST TOOK A PAGE FROM TRUMP. BUT THERE'S MORE TO DO TO KEEP CALIFORNIA THE VOICE OF GOLD

What followed was entirely predictable: tens of thousands of needles and shopping carts littered rivers, canals and public lands as the camps became government-sanctioned waiting rooms for permanent housing that often never came.

As vulnerable people are left to do nothing for years without treatment or purpose, social decay takes root – and what should shock the public conscience becomes normal.

Saddest of all was our time walking the streets of Sacramento, where we saw people breaking down physically, mentally and spiritually while passers-by didn't look up – not scared, not angry, not gasping.

This is what we saw in Sacramento last week, as my partner and I spent a day working with the River City Waterway Alliance – a volunteer group made up mostly of retirees who have become one of the last lines of defense protecting Sacramento's waterways from environmental degradation. We spent another day working with the Sacramento County Sheriff's HOT team, which removed approximately 5,000 pounds of debris from a cave that the team had completely cleared one month earlier.

LA COUNTY'S HOMELESS EXPLOSION UNDER THE MICROSCOPE OF NEWLY APPOINTED US ATTORNEY

One conclusion was hard to escape: America's homelessness problem is, at its core, a problem of accountability — and Sacramento is a symbol of what happens when accountability declines, ideas take the place of results, and leaders refuse to face the consequences of their policies.

The realities of Sacramento alone paint a striking picture:

Over the past three years, Alliance volunteers have removed nearly $4 million worth of waste from Sacramento's waterways – including 29,000 needles, 19,000 shopping carts and more than 70,000 batteries.

CALIFORNIA IS OUT, BUT IT'S NOT YET FOR ALL OF US

During that time, the homeless death rate has more than doubled in that time.

In one year, the Sacramento County Sheriff's HOT Team visited nearly 4,600 camps, closed more than 1,300 of them, and removed 3 million pounds of trash from homeless shelters.

But as volunteers and law enforcement struggle to end the situation, Sacramento's homeless population has grown by another 13% in the past year alone — another 1,000 people — further compounding a problem the region has already failed to cope with.

SEC SCOTT TURNER: BLAME DRUGS AND MENTAL ILLNESS, NOT PRESIDENT TRUMP, FOR THE DISADVANTAGES OF OUR STREETS

The degradation is mounting faster than it can be contained, and the scale of the destruction is almost impossible to understand without seeing it for yourself.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom looks on during a bill signing ceremony related to the redrawing of state congressional maps on Aug. 21, 2025, in Sacramento, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

But the saddest thing of all was our time walking the streets of Sacramento, where we saw people breaking down physically, mentally and spiritually while passers-by didn't look up – not shocked, not angry, not gasping. In Sacramento, this level of suffering and social degradation is now tolerated.

Yet none of this was inevitable.

THIS IS HOW WE WILL KNOW IF THE CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM'S EPIPHANY ON 'LIBERAL GOVERNMENT' IS TRUE

For years, volunteers at the River City Waterway Alliance have urged local and state leaders to address the environmental degradation of Sacramento's waterways. At the same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have created a free shelter set aside — despite pleas from people struggling with addiction, top providers and mayors across California who warned the state desperately needs recovery-focused options within its homelessness program.

In their view, the city and county are now responding. But repeated requests to the governor, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and even the Sacramento chapter of the Sierra Club — organizations with real power and a publicly stated mission directly aligned with these issues — were met with silence.

Crickets.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff's HOT Team, which contains the vandalism, is now under pressure as county leaders face a $100 million budget shortfall.

That tells you everything you need to know about the priorities in the current system and the elected officials who lead it.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE FOX NEWS

Today, Sacramento stands as a warning to the rest of the nation about what happens when accountability is removed, when leaders refuse to face the consequences of their failed policies, and when voters continue to return those same leaders to power as human suffering, environmental destruction, social disruption and societal decay accelerates.

That is the real problem. Not just homelessness. Not just houses.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS PROGRAM

The breakdown of self-responsibility.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE FROM MICHELE STEEB