Exposing the Homeless Industrial Complex
Commentary
Earlier this month, a guest column in San Jose Spotlight defended efforts by homeless nonprofits to end homelessness in Santa Clara County. The author, Ray Bramson, is the chief impact officer at the nonprofit “Destination Home,” a tax exempt organization that collected over $62 million in contributions and grants in 2020 (pdf). The CEO of this organization made a reported $335,404 in that year, and one of the directors made a whopping $754,871, of which a hefty $693,186 was “base compensation.”
Let’s suppose these salaries are justifiable, since it isn’t unusual for an organization with revenue of $62 million to have executives who make that much. The problem is that this organization is the product of perverse incentives. The management of public space has been taken over by what has now become a homeless industrial complex. Organizations like Destination Home will not flourish if homelessness is eliminated. Instead, like many other prosperous nonprofits and heavily funded government programs, the more they fail, the bigger they get….