House Speaker Mike Johnson came up with a great plan. To finance the aid needed by Israel, he is paying for it by using money set up to promote the IRS efforts to kill off American families and businesses. Maybe California can take the same idea and use money for the biggest government/corrupt scam in American history, the High speed Rail, the train to nowhere?
“I hereby propose — very modestly — Homeless High-Speed Rail.
You read that right. Finding permanent lodging for unhoused people would become the new, urgent mission of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Under Homeless High-Speed Rail, the state’s unhoused people would no longer have to live in cars or shelters or encampments. Instead, everyone would have the option of a sleeping-car berth on a brand-new bullet train.
Sure, this fusion might create some challenges. But might it solve even more problems?
For example: advocates have long criticized California for its mishmash competing homelessness initiatives, and for insufficient funding for local solutions. My proposal solves all that — by consolidating every single state and local homeless housing program under one single state agency: the High-Speed Rail Authority.
Now, some cynics might call that combination crazy — a mere merger of two giant dysfunctional money pits. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong.
What a great idea. Both are failure—we can have ONE even bigger failure instead of two. What do you think?
JOE MATHEWS: Modest proposal — give high-speed rail to homeless Californians
By JOE MATHEWS, Bakersfield.com, 11/5/23 https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/joe-mathews-modest-proposal-give-high-speed-rail-to-homeless-californians/article_6a98dfee-79dd-11ee-ab3c-9770e5977874.html
- California is spending billions to house its increasing population of unhoused people. But it hasn’t come close to its ambitious goal of ending homelessness. And many Californians have lost hope that it ever will.
California is spending billions to construct a high-speed rail system. But it hasn’t come close to completing an actual line. And many Californians have lost hope that it ever will.
In the face of such failures, what is to be done? One option would be to surrender, concluding that mega-projects are too challenging here.
Or we could steel ourselves and embrace the wisdom of Dwight Eisenhower — who advised: “If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.”
In Ike’s spirit, I suggest we combine the big problems of homeless housing and high-speed rail into something larger.
I hereby propose — very modestly — Homeless High-Speed Rail.
You read that right. Finding permanent lodging for unhoused people would become the new, urgent mission of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Under Homeless High-Speed Rail, the state’s unhoused people would no longer have to live in cars or shelters or encampments. Instead, everyone would have the option of a sleeping-car berth on a brand-new bullet train.
Sure, this fusion might create some challenges. But might it solve even more problems?
For example: advocates have long criticized California for its mishmash competing homelessness initiatives, and for insufficient funding for local solutions. My proposal solves all that — by consolidating every single state and local homeless housing program under one single state agency: the High-Speed Rail Authority.
Now, some cynics might call that combination crazy — a mere merger of two giant dysfunctional money pits. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong.
The state has spent more than $20 billion on housing and homelessness since 2019 — but the number of unhoused Californians has grown by one-third. Meanwhile, the high-speed rail project has secured $25 billion — but is still $10 billion short of the $35 billion required to complete its first Central Valley segment.
But the cynics miss this: two failing programs, in combination, could save each other money.
Building homeless housing is incredibly costly — Los Angeles pays more than $800,000 for some one-bedroom units. But much of that price is in expensive land, labor, and time-wasting permitting processes. None of which are factors when people are housed on rail cars.
Instead, using housing money to buy rail cars means that the rail authority could devote more of its funding to building rail and stations (which could double as housing).
That’s a win-win!
Indeed, combining homeless housing and high-speed rail could answer objections that dog both programs.
For example, cities often can’t build homeless housing because of aggressive opposition from neighborhood NIMBYs. But NIMBYs would lose their backyard objections, when housing zooms past, at 200 miles per hour.
Meanwhile, hosting homeless Californians answers persistent questions about whether there would be enough riders to support the project. In a Homeless High-Speed Rail project, unhoused individuals would provide a large and steady ridership base.
Strange as my proposal may seem, almost nothing about it is new.
Keeping homeless people constantly on the move sounds cruel, but this is already established policy across California — since communities constantly tear down homeless encampments, forcing unhoused people to keep relocating.
And if you board L.A. Metro or other local transit systems in the state, you’ll see that individuals without homes are California’s most dedicated train riders. Thousands of unhoused Californians all but live on these local trains now, because of the low-cost shelter they provide.
Of course, there will be some Californians, perhaps millions, who object to the whole concept, finding it perverse. These misguided moralists, a few of whom write columns, will say that California is a very rich place that surely can afford to house all its people and to build the same high-speed rail system that two dozen other countries have. And they will claim that California must learn to build and manage giant new housing and infrastructure projects if it’s going to survive the adaptation challenges of climate change.
In theory, these skeptical Californians will probably be right. But California doesn’t operate on theory. It operates on an unmanageable budget process, a volatile tax code and a broken governing system that both parties refuse to fix. It has a state government that can’t adopt modern technology or manage a payroll, much less translate its people’s democratic preferences into major action. The way California operates now, the state will never have enough housing for the homeless or a real high-speed spine for its transportation networks.
So, before you dismiss my modest proposal, just ask yourself: In the face of massive failures, when doing big and essential things is nearly impossible, is there any plan too awful to take off the table?
