The office of governor Tim Walz recently announced $100 million in new funding for organizations helping Minnesotans experiencing homelessness. Normally this kind of news would be met with considerations of charity or with the whispered thanksgiving of gratitude; homelessness is a plague and a shame.
Usually. But this is Minnesota, the land of the vanished moola.
The announcement came as food fraudsters went on trial for stealing $250 million of our tax dollars in a scam that went undetected for too long by the Walz administration. And to this day, the public remains unaware that any elected or unelected bureaucrat from Walz on down has suffered any consequences for the outrageous theft, nor have there been any apologies for the nation’s largest food fraud scandal during the pandemic .
Minnesotans might be excused for their skepticism if another 100 million public dollars are in play. The announcement said the money went to 135 organizations in the metro and Greater Minnesota following a “streamlined” application process. The process of getting money to feed the tens of millions of children of the past was also streamlined.
It can occasionally inspire confidence when the government says of a new pile: “This money will be extremely difficult to obtain.”
From the press release: “The 135 organizations that receive state grants meet people where they are to get them on their feet. Whether it is providing hot meals, chemical health assessment and treatment, or shelter space, their services are vital.”
Some questions to put skeptical minds at ease. Please answer, Governor. I’m sure this newspaper would be happy to print your guest editorial.
-
What safeguards are in place to ensure that the agencies receiving grants are genuine?
-
Who or which department is responsible for visiting funding recipients?
-
Will homelessness decrease by x number of people? Such a generous amount of money should yield notable goals.
-
Will recipients of the funding be required to provide weekly or monthly accounting receipts, as well as verifiable numbers of people fed, housed or treated for addiction? Who will verify such reports?
-
Should funding recipients set specific goals and the means by which the goals are identifiable and measurable? Put another way, how is providing $100 million measured by success or achievement?
Your press release was full of standard gibberish, but no hard facts.
If, heaven forbid, fraud is discovered, will government employees charged with running the program – the Department of Human Services – be held liable along with the fraudsters?
We all want solutions to homelessness, especially in Minnesota, where it is difficult to be homeless for about seven months of the year. But we have been burned, terribly burned, and this government and legislative body, which has devoured an $18 billion surplus, mind you, has shown no evidence of fiduciary responsibility. This is the government where no one ever stopped and said, “Wait a minute. We don’t even have that many kids in Minnesota.”
All we want is for the Minnesota government to treat our money the way we do. Carefully.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s podcast “Garage Logic” can be listened to at garagelogic.com.
