Homelessness is a horrific and heartbreaking affliction in America that is getting worse.

A new disturbing report by the Capital Research Center concludes that there’s big money in keeping homeless people – mostly drug addicts and the mentally ill – on the streets.  And a lot of that money is taxpayer dollars.

“Fringe groups in the Homeless Industrial Complex like to characterize homelessness as a symptom of societal injustices, such as systemic racism, police violence, or capitalism,” Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, explained.

The report concludes:

Without clearer boundaries between service and advocacy, and without transparency in how public and philanthropic dollars are used, the United States will continue to spend at scale while leaving tens of thousands on the streets. Reform requires more than funding: it requires accountability, a focus on recovery-oriented programs with measurable results, and vigilance against the misuse of humanitarian platforms for ideological ends. Only then can the nation’s compassion be turned intosolutions that genuinely help people off the streets rather than into instruments for agendas that have little to do with homelessness at all.