PRI's Focus on California

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Housing First programs aren't working
Bakersfield Californian | Kerry Jackson & Wayne Winegarden
August 20, 2022

Project Homekey, California’s answer to its homelessness troubles, came with great promises. But like many government plans before it, it’s fallen short, and isn’t likely to recover.

California’s homeless population exploded from about 114,000 in 2014 to more than 161,000 in 2020, the most recent year. Over the same period, homelessness in the rest of the U.S. fell from approximately 508,000 to 419,000. Somehow this happened as California’s economy expanded much faster than the economies of all other states — 28.8 percent growth vs. 17.6 percent.

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ESG Has Become an Obstacle to Resolving the State Unfunded Pension Crisis

Right by the Bay | Tim Anaya & Wayne Winegarden
August 16, 2022

Even with generous assumptions, the state unfunded pension crisis is worsening. The market surge of 2021 helped reduce the unfunded gap, but then came the bear market of 2022. As a recent Wall Street Journal Headline put it, Market Rout Sends State and City Pension Funds to Worst Year Since 2009 ([link removed]) .

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Not April Fool's Day: Newsom Gets Education Award as California Students Suffer and Fail

CAPITAL IDEAS | Lance Izumi
August 24, 2022

When Governor Gavin Newsom recently received a national award for education, just as student learning craters due to his disastrous school policies, one could hear California parents collectively exclaim, “Seriously?”

The Education Commission of the States, which is an interstate agency that is supposed to create opportunities for state policymakers to learn from each other, shockingly gave its innovation award to California, not because of its success in improving student outcomes, but for spending lots of taxpayer dollars.

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Now That's What We Call Recycling

Right by the Bay | Kerry Jackson
August 25, 2022

Californians are almost uniformly careful to place their used consumer goods and packaging in the correct bins for the environment’s sake. Recycling is a Golden State way of life, and to some not far from being a religion. Let’s call this micro-recycling, and despite its popularity, it is purely garbage ([link removed]) , as John Tierney so helpfully detailed more than 25 years ago in the New York Times Magazine.

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