During the campaign, we were assured that the United States was experiencing an economic renaissance. Trump's claims that Americans were suffering were pure misinformation.

Trust the media, not the evidence of your eyes. 

BREAKING: The U.S. saw an 18.1% increase in homelessness this year, with more than 770,000 people counted as homeless. https://t.co/PgHEyX8eVu

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 27, 2024

Now that the election campaign is over, economic statistics are getting revised downward, and a new government report on homelessness shows that there are nearly 20% more homeless people today than last year. 

The United States saw an 18.1% increase in homelessness this year, a dramatic rise driven mostly by a lack of affordable housing as well as devastating natural disasters and a surge of migrants in several parts of the country, federal officials said Friday.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said federally required tallies taken across the country in January found that more than 770,000 people were counted as homeless — a number that misses some people and does not include those staying with friends or family because they do not have a place of their own.

That increase comes on top of a 12% increase in 2023, which HUD blamed on soaring rents and the end of pandemic assistance. The 2023 increase also was driven by people experiencing homelessness for the first time. The numbers overall represent 23 of every 10,000 people in the U.S., with Black people being overrepresented among the homeless population.

Twenty percent. Surely this is a sign of a booming economy. I have been reliably assured that we live in a near utopia under Joe Biden. The land of milk and honey is right here, as long as you can navigate the streets paved with gold and poop. 

This picture of Gavin Newscum is the perfect image to explain the Democrats platform. pic.twitter.com/1iwYwDz4Dv

— Walter Curt (@WCdispatch_) December 27, 2024

If you listen to Democrat politicians, particularly at the local levels of government, "affordable housing" is one of the issues you keep hearing about. And, as with homelessness, even though government keeps spending billions to "solve" the problem it only gets worse as the people raking in the subsidies get wealthier and wealthier. 

21-year anniversary! 🎉

Of a '10-year plan' to end homelessness that somehow turned into an endless cycle of decay.

They call it a plan, but it’s a program—one that feeds itself. Billions spent, systems bloated, and yet the streets are overflowing. The tents multiply, the… pic.twitter.com/7hqn0UskzC

— FRΞΞ PRINCΞ (@tyrannideris) December 18, 2024

We are into the 21st year of Gavin Newsom's 10-year plan to end homelessness, and at the national level, homelessness is an issue Democrats have lectured about for 50 years. 

“No American should face homelessness, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring every family has access to the affordable, safe, and quality housing they deserve,” HUD Agency Head Adrianne Todman said in a statement, adding that the focus should remain on “evidence-based efforts to prevent and end homelessness.”

In places like Los Angeles and San Francisco government funds new housing units for "unhoused" people to the tune of a million dollars or so an apartment, yet somehow the streets keep getting filled with tents, and ordinary people are still priced out of housing, and only the developers and bureaucrats seem to be doing just fine. 

"Evidence-based efforts to prevent and end homelessness" seem to be based solely on the evidence of bloated bank accounts for those charged with solving this problem because there is precious little evidence that the Democratic Party's policies show any evidence of improving the situation. 

A 12% increase in 2023 and an 18% increase in 2024 is evidence that solving homelessness is not a priority. Spreading the money around to friends of the Democrats seems to be the only goal. 

Notably, HUD points to the migrant crisis as one of the causes, which I have to say is a shocking finding. Who knew that importing 10 million or more people into the country would put a strain on the housing market? 

If you think I sound too cynical, know that I have been dealing with bureaucrats and politicians who keep promising to solve this problem for decades. The best of them are playing Sim City, testing their pet theories on the unsuspecting in their cities. The majority of them are just farming the homeless, harvesting dollars from the homeless people they carefully cultivate. Each person in a tent represents dollars in their pockets. 

Welcome to San Francisco! The City pays Urban Alchemy $62,000 per tent to manage their municipal Library encampment @JennyChachan pic.twitter.com/xezK8Sjiby

— Soledad Ursua (@SoledadUrsua) January 25, 2022

It's long past time to take anything the left says seriously. They claim to support all sorts of compassionate-sounding goals. What they are doing is making bank.