Transcription
More seniors in California are becoming homeless, and it's very tough for seniors right now in California. Today, we sit down with Richie Kumar, who is working on an initiative to help the seniors in California. We also talked to Joel Anderson, who's a county supervisor in San Diego, to see what they're seeing and if there is any potential solutions to all of this.
The seniors, when they have money that comes back into their pockets, they are much more willing to donate into schools, to invest in mom and pop shops, to basically make the purchase right there locally. I think this will create a trickle effect, and it should basically help the economy, the local economy, which is where we need the help.
"Frankly, seeing grandma or grandpa living out of a car or living in a tent is a horrible thing for them and for society. It's easier to keep somebody from becoming homeless than it is to deal with them once they become homeless."
I am Siamak. Welcome to California Insider.
Richie, it's great to have you on. Welcome.
It's great to be here. Thank you.
We want to talk to you about seniors in California not doing well financially, and you have a ballot proposition you're trying to get signatures for. Let's start with seniors. I'm hearing from some seniors that with the insurance rates being as high as they are, some are potentially even losing their home and they can't afford their home. Can you tell us what's happening?
Property tax is the biggest challenge that seniors have with the 60 plus property tax exemption act of 2026 that we have launched. We have heard from thousands of seniors across the 58 counties of California, and there is a consistent thread. Uh, many of them say that they want to move out of the state because they're not able to keep up with the property tax payments. They need the help. They need the help, and this will be a huge help for them if we can get it done. And I'm motivated to be there to help these seniors out because they cannot keep up with the rising cost of living. Inflation is over the roof. The grocery bills are high, and everything is sort of adding up, and there is an angst building up with the seniors. You know, that's that's the motivational force behind why we are spending so much time and energy to get this exemption act done. It's very, very important for me personally and the whole volunteer team that we have.
Tell us more about this act. So the goal for you guys to get signatures to get on the to get on the ballot. Can you tell us how would this work?
Yep. So we have to follow the secretary of state process, and based on the defined process, uh, we have to get about a million signatures, and uh, we have to follow a certain format of the petition form. So that's on a website, exemptpropytax.com. So people are downloading the petition form. They have to sign it, and they have to mail it back. So that's that's a simple format. The way this is going to work, though, is uh, any anyone who is 60 plus in California, who has lived in California for 10 years, domiciled in California for 10 years, or has lived in that home for 5 years, will get the exemption irrespective of anything else. That's it.
So what does the exemption mean? Like, there is zero tax?
Zero taxes. Yeah.
Property tax?
Zero property tax. If you're 60 and you qualify, it's essentially very simple. You know, people, when you try to have too many variables in there, it gets very complicated. People don't know who qualifies, who doesn't. And so this is structured from a very, very simplistic perspective. The resonance, the feedback that we're getting from people is simply incredible because we hear from even the 50 plus population, they're quite excited about this potential. You know, because at the end of the day, when you look at California, we had a $40 billion surplus, which has turned into an $80 billion deficit. There is so much wastage that's going on. During the pandemic, $40 billion was lost to pandemic fraud. You look at the bullet train that we are spending so much money on, $80 billion. The return is not there. So, people are like, you know, why is the government not efficient? And that's the reason why, instead of sending money to government where it could potentially be wasted on frivolous purposes, why not send it back into the pockets of seniors who need it the most?
Some people are concerned that some services could get impacted because this is a big amount of money, and a lot of seniors are homeowners here in California.
Yeah. What we hear the feedback is that what about schools? Because seniors in my city of Saratoga would like to maintain the schools to the level what we have today, because schools are the foundation for for a city, for for just providing that quality of life. It thrives from the foundation of having good schools. Now, schools are basically mandated, the funding is mandated by the state of California by Prop 98. So from the general general fund of California, which is about $250 billion, about a hundred billion dollars goes towards the schools, you know. So the impact is not a whole lot with schools. Now, when you look at the legislative analyst office, which is part of Sacramento, and they do a lot of these bills, they look at the impact of the bills that are basically conceived. Yeah. Exactly. So what they said is there is a 12 to 20 billion impact with this particular property tax exemption.
So the state will have 12 to 20 billion less money?
Less money. And the total property tax collected in California is about a hundred billion. And so, if you see, seniors have been living in the same home for decades. So their property tax is not substantial compared to new home sales. And that's the reason why we we are looking at a 12 to 20 billion deficit. And some of the analysis is actually not taking into account the the benefits that will derive that will be derived in economies, in societies, because of artificial intelligence, because of automation. So the analysis is probably a great starting point, but it's not telling the whole story. You know, we feel the impact will be a lot less. For example, the seniors, you know, when they have money that comes back into their pockets, they are much more willing to to donate into schools, into schools in their community, to to invest in mom and pop shops, to basically make the purchase right there locally. I think this will create a trickle effect, and it should basically help the economy, the local economy, which is where we need the help. You know, the Amazon of Amazon of the world have taken over, and the mom and pop shops are disappearing. But if you send the money back, this will lead as a catalyst to sparking and growing the local economy in a in a good way.
And so 12 to 20 billion. So you think that's there is enough money in the California's budget that is going into wasteful things? This could not have a big impact on it. And then you think this money, if it's given back to the seniors, they're going to use it?
Absolutely. So if you look at the context, right, it's uh, California's budget is 33, $350 billion. Now, the impact is only 12 to 20 billion, which could easily be made up by the state of California because with Prop 98, they have to fund it. And then it'll also force a lot of belt-tightening within the counties, within within our cities. Uh, when you look at Santa Clara County, for example, we used to spend $1.5 billion on healthcare programs in a budget of about uh, $7 billion. And now today, we are spending about $7 billion with a budget of $13.7 billion.
We're spending, you're spending $7 billion on healthcare?
Yes. And now for a population of 2 million. Okay. Now LA County, the population is five times. Their budget is $45 billion. They're only spending $12 billion on healthcare. So why are why is Santa Clara County spending $7 billion on healthcare? So this is why we need belt-tightening. We need to force action in every strata of government to basically provide better services and to provide optimal services. You know, you have to cut back. You have to figure out where do we really need to spend the money. California spends $17,000 per person in providing services. $17,000 per per person. You look at Cal, look at Florida, they spend $10,000, a lot less for probably better services. So, I think there's an opportunity for us to do things a lot better in California. And this property tax exemption will sort of force action. It'll be a forcing factor to ensure that everybody aligns, local cities, state, state government with counties, they all align towards trying to figure out how do we move forward in a much more optimal manner? You know.
And how did you come up with this? Was there a time where you saw that the money is not getting spent correctly?
As a city council member, I would meet with a lot of seniors, and even before I I decided to run for city council, I used to run programs to help the senior center out. We would run like a talent show. We would raise money for the senior center. That became a passion for me to see how we could address the needs of seniors, and sometimes donating like a karaoke equipment for them, you know, just sort of sort of like helping out with their quality of life. And that's when the dialogue started happening. I mean, I truly didn't know what their challenges were, and I started hearing getting feedback from them in terms of what their core issues were. And then on the city council, we we have a water company that's basically gone pretty expensive. You know, their profits have exploded from uh, $15 million a year to like 90.
The water company?
Water company. $15 million a year to $90 million now for for the same exact population, same number of households. So they, and and the seniors are actually feeling the pain.
So they're charging more for?
They're charging more. And the seniors, they would come to me literally crying, "Look at the water bill, Rishi. Can you help us out with this?" Because if their water bill is, you know, it's like $200, $300 a month, and suddenly it goes to $1,000, they they can't keep up with that, you know. They just don't have the financial resources because.
Their incumbent from 50 or 15 million to n?
15 million to 90 million.
To 90 million. Six times?
Yes, six times in about 15 years or so, you know.
So then the bills went up. Sign. The bills went up, and there were a lot of, you know, essentially, you know, how the process is, they have to submit every filing to PUC, they have to review it, and they have to public utilities. And with the drought, there were surge charges. In the surge charges, some seniors, their water bill for 2 months was like $4,000, you know.
Wow.
Because we don't have the analytics, we don't have like, you know, simple app apps that will show you how your trending data is, and they were caught like off guard, like, "Oh my god, how did my bill go so high because of the surge charge?" You know, but anyway, that's a different story. But listening to the seniors, I realized that, you know, they are hurting financially. And so, as for my congressional campaign, this was a core component of my agenda, trying to see how we can help seniors. And recently, we have launched this effort for property tax exemption. I believe we are on the right path, and uh, we need some help financially to get it done. We need the donors to come out and help us out because we would like to run social media ads. We would like to send out envelopes with petitions to people's households. So these are mechanics of a campaign, but I believe we are on the right track based upon the resonance that we are hearing from people.
You were in the city council, right? Did you see things that in the government that you see that we could definitely save money on?
And you're you're looking at the state government, you're looking at the budget. Do you think there's a lot of room to have serious savings for for Californians?
Can I make it a one-word answer? Yes. Because even if I look at our city council, I understood the budget really well, and I would come up with like creative approaches of how we could save money. And there are like, you know, if you just, if you run a financial audit, which is what I was asking our county because our county actually increased the sales tax. And I said, "Before we go out and ask more money from people, because the the sales tax is regressive. You know, when we are trying to help people, we are actually hurting the people who are at the bottom, at the very bottom, who are struggling to make a living. We are hurting."
They have to pay too. Everybody has to pay, right?
They have to pay. But you know, if if somebody who makes a million dollars has to pay a little extra for the sales tax, it's a very minuscule percentage. But somebody who doesn't make a million dollars, let's say they make $10,000, you know, for them, that sales tax percentage is so much higher. So that's the regressive nature of this. So my proposal was, why don't we do a financial audit and let's figure out ways we can cut back before we go to the people? In fact, I think every strata of government should be doing exactly that, you know, figure out ways to save. And uh, right now, there are so many cities they are looking at doing uh, sales tax increases. And I think the appetite for that is very slim. We are doing a VTA, VTA tax in Santa Clara County, in actually in the nine Bay Area county. And I think with all these taxes coming together, it's a perfect storm, and I believe many of these taxes will get rejected now, you know. It's time to optimize and send money back to people and see how this will create a bigger, better economy, you know, make it work better for the seniors.
So you tried to ask for an audit. What was the feedback? What's the, why do people don't want to have the audit?
We are in favor. Like, if you go to any county government or even city cities, you will find that there is generally a directional shift to having big government there, you know. So a city manager would want more and more people on their on their staff. So our city in the 2007 recession, we had, it's a very small city. We are a poor affluent city in Silicon Valley. We had about 35 city employees. Today, we are at 55.
So has grown a lot?
And the functional taxes task is really the same. Also, we are using a lot of AI tools. For example, plan checks, building checks. You know, when we are submitting proposals, we are actually running it through AI. So there should be a cut back. But it's really not happening. You know, we see that still growing. So I think generally, there are people invested to to keep their jobs and to to have big government because there is some benefit going on there. It's really not benefiting the people. And at the end of the day, elected leaders are elected to address the needs of their constituents. So we need sort of pragmatic elected leaders who come from industry and not the career politician, and that's when we'll start seeing some change happening, you know. But the nature of politics is, you know, when people are electing somebody to office, they would like to see a background in politics or a background in government and things like that. So it's a catch-22 situation, you know. I don't think so we'll ever get out of it, you know.
Did you face some of that yourself?
Oh, yeah, exactly. So, you know, from a policy standpoint, when I was running for Congress against Anna Eshoo, we had really good policies. We were talking about some of the challenges of the district and how we could fix them and address them. And then also looking at the windshield, like what is the forward-looking policy we need, but also looking at the rearview mirror and saying, "Okay, here are policies that have been wrong, and this is what we can fix." But it's very hard for a candidate like me to get the attention of people because you need to get funded. Anybody who's in office, they are well-funded. They are well-funded, and uh, so it becomes much harder. Plus, you know, you need to get the attention of the people, and for that, you need the funding. So it becomes very hard for somebody who's not an incumbent to get in there and and shake things up. It's very hard.
How did you get into all of this?
My wife tells me I'm a glutton for punishment. But uh, it's really a passion. I would say it's, I would call it a hobby, which is what I call it. But it's about problem-solving. As an activist, if you're able to put your energy, ideas behind something, change is possible. Like, even in my neighborhood, when I look at, uh, when I moved into my neighborhood, the roads had never been paved. And all I had to do was call the public works director, and it was done. The next year, it was done, just by drawing attention to a problem. So I realized that to to have change happen, it's not like you have to look to your left and right, who's going to jump in and take action. It falls onto us to do that, you know. And that really became my calling. Like, if I see saw saw problems, saw seniors hurting, okay, let's do a Saratoga's Got Talent to raise money for the senior centers, you know. You see problems on the city, let's go run for city council because I don't believe in playing sideline basketball. I believe in jumping in, immersing myself into the game and trying to impact that game.
And what is it like to be in that? So you seem to have won some and you've lost some. Can you tell us about that? What's what's the journey like?
Losses are very hard. You know, I think the lens through which we look at uh, people is through success, and politics is one and zero. You know, we have a congressman, Raja Krishnamoorthi, in uh, Illinois. He's an Indian-American. He had a pretty successful stint in Congress, and then he ran for Senate in the lower house to the US Senate. He spent like $30, $40 million, but he lost. And then it's like, "Oh my god, you know, he failed." He's been pretty successful as a congressman. If you jump into politics, you have to have an appetite for failure. You know, you have to learn to deal with failure. And for me, it was very hard. But I think I have developed the right attitude to take the success and the failures in stride. And secondly, you need to have a thick skin because people will analyze you. You are on the radar of people. People will judge you. And the kind of allegations that go on next door on elected leaders is like crazy. But then you have to just learn to ignore it because people will say, in the age of social media, they will say what they need to. And we just have to march forward with a purpose. Like, we have the saying, "When elephants walk, the dogs will bark." And so it's like, you have a purpose. You're driving forward. You know, if there are people who are unhappy about it, it's totally okay. You know, basically, don't try to get into an argument with them. Hopefully, at some point, you will flip some of them to support you because then finally they reconcile, which is really what happened in my city council. The first time I ran, I barely won by 70 votes because people quite couldn't quite tell, you know, what's this guy's agenda. Uh, there there are not too many like people like me in politics. And after four years, with some of the issues I ran with and problems I fixed, I ended up getting reelected with the highest vote count in 70 years of Saratoga, and that record will stand for probably another couple decades, you know. So that's that's the testament to to value that we can bring to the people. And that became my guiding force in terms of trying to keep our elected leaders accountable, man, you know, this is not acceptable. This is how we should do it. And expressing a fearless voice about it because if we don't do it, you know, we can't expect someone else to do it. You know, we have to immerse ourselves. We have to ensure that my voice is heard, and then you will we can see a movement that happens from that. You know, that's the exciting part.
So, what did you do that you got that much support?
Well, fixing problems. You know, we had burglaries in my city. The burglaries had gone up, break-ins. You know, we are again a very affluent community, and people were breaking into homes. And I said, "How do we fix that?" And the angst was building up. Seniors sleeping in the night would be would wake up and find an intruder in their home, you know. So I said, "Okay, how do we fix that?" So we started doing neighborhood watch programs. My wife and I, we started walking neighborhoods by having a flyer and saying, "I want to meet you to discuss the crime issues." And the first meeting, like five or six people came up, you know. I was still very new on the city council, and uh, people didn't know me. And then uh, then the word got out. Somebody saw the value of that meeting. They put it on Next Door. "Hey, this guy is doing this." And next thing you know, people started reaching out to me that, "Hey, Rishi, can you help my neighborhood by reducing crime in my neighborhood?" I personally rolled out 59 neighborhood watch programs in my city of Saratoga. We had over 300 neighborhood leaders who who emerged because of all the consistent neighborhood meetings we had in every corner of Saratoga. The crime dropped by 50%, and it has remained at that level because we not only have neighborhood watch programs. We have empowered leaders who are actually informing their neighbors as to what's going on. People are watching out for their neighbors. We're also doing block parties where neighbors are meeting each other. They're getting to know each other, and they are watching watching out for their homes as well. We do block parties. People have put cameras. The city of Saratoga has flock cameras in place. So with all these consistent focus and action, applying quite a bit of the tech framework of actually finding solutions, don't get bogged down by problems, but try to cut to the chase and find solutions, which is what we do in the world of tech. And that has worked out really well on the city council for me.
And for your initiative right now, you need a million signatures. Like, it's not easy to pass these things without serious funding. Do you have some serious funding or no?
We don't. I mean, we are getting a lot of $58 checks from seniors. We say, "A dollar per county. Can you please write us a $58 check?" Many of them are cash-strapped. So, we tell them, "Look, it's optional. You don't have to donate," you know, because we are very cognizant of their challenges. So, we get a lot of these $5, $10 checks. We would like to have a lot more resources at our disposal to run social media ads, to send out envelopes to people's homes. We don't have that yet. And uh, we have reached out to people who can make big contributions, trying to get their attention. Given the fact that there are, I think, 14 ballot measures on the ballot in in the November election, it's very hard to get the attention of people. And uh, so we are waiting for this cycle to finish this election cycle, and uh, we are going to do a repeat next year, and uh, with some financial support, I know we can get it done. We are only given 6 months, like I said, to get this uh, completed and finished and submitted. So the timeline is fairly narrow for a massive effort like this. I wish the rules of engagement would be a little bit easier. For example, online petition. The secretary of state could very easily define an online petition format where people put in their driver's license information, and that is validated with the ROV. Simple, simple.
So electronically they they sign and they send it to the?
There is a tech solution for this that could be built fairly quickly to automate this process. Right now, it's very painful because you have to print these forms. You have to sign it, and based on the format of these forms that we are mandated, like people tell me, "Rishi, can I just send the signature page?" I'm like, "No, sorry, it will not qualify because they want the the complete, the amendment language to be there in that page." So it's basically four pages back to back, two pages, two signatures only, which is like crazy, you know. It's so painful, but we have to follow the process. If you don't follow the process.
The signatures are not?
Rejected. They are invalid, you know. So I think there's a way to make it easier, and this is where government fails sometimes. They make a process too hard, and we got to make it work better for the people. And maybe that's the next thing I'll take up, you know. People ask, "What will it take for you to get it done?" And uh, we we are a core team of volunteers. We are quite passionate about this, but, you know, it's it's an uphill climb to get this done.
To get a million signatures?
To get a million signatures.
And in the format that you're talking about, which you got to?
It's not that easy. And and without any funding, because a lot of times people are getting these signatures, they're paying someone to go collect it.
Yep. Exactly. Some seniors tell me, "Rishi, I don't have a printer at home. What do I do? I need to print this, right?" Can I? Some of them actually send out online like a PDF document with signed stuff, you know. I'm like, "No, sorry, you have to mail it." So, I I think we are trying to do the best given the constraints we have, but at the same time, we need the resources to run a good campaign. I think we have a great, we have a really good solid shot of making it happen for the 2028 election. It looks impossible or very, very difficult for us to in the next month to finish this. You know, very likely it's not going to happen. But our volunteer volunteer team is not going to give up. Uh, there are people who are leading the effort. They are getting out there, standing at Safeway and Trader Joe's, getting signatures. They are sending in packets. People come to my home and drop like big boxes, and there is enthusiasm for it. I can see how passionate the team is, and that's the reason why we're going to do a take two and get it done.
Now, we're going to go to Joel Anderson, who's a county supervisor in San Diego, to see what he's seeing in San Diego.
Every study that's been done recently shows that the highest spike in homelessness is 55 and older, with a real big spike at 65. So the challenge of of uh, seniors is so many of them in the 80s may have retired as teachers or workers on $60,000 a year. And today in San Diego County, $60,000 is hardly your rent, rent alone. So if you have food, if you have medicine, you can't afford it. And that's why we're seeing a huge population of the homeless becoming seniors. Now, the worst part is these seniors don't have drug abuse issues, substance abuse issues. They don't have mental health issues. They just simply retired uh, with not enough money, not anticipating that they've outlived their pension. And and as a result, across the across California, seniors are moving to the streets. And we have a lot of them here in San Diego. They're living out of their cars. And frankly, seeing grandma or grandpa living out of a car or living in a tent is a horrible thing for them and for society.
And do you see the numbers going up? And how did you, how did you observe this? When did it come to your attention that this is happening?
Well, when I got elected uh in 2020, I had put on my campaign signs that I was going to fix homelessness. And so, I really dove into the homeless issue. And as a result, I learned about this population. I had no idea that this was going on. And so I set out to address the issue. It's easier to keep somebody from becoming homeless than it is to deal with them once they become homeless. Think of it. You're 70, 75, 80 years old. You're living out your car because you lost your apartment or your home, or you're living in a tent. Now you're living in fear. So, how long is it before you self-medicate with alcohol or drugs of any type? How long is it before you have mental health issues? And then for us to treat them on the streets, it's a lot more expensive, but it's also a much uh costlier um price to society. We're teaching our kids that we don't care about grandma and grandpa when we need to do just the opposite. So, one of the studies had said that if there was a shallow rent subsidy, a small amount of money that we could give seniors to keep them in their apartments or in their homes, uh, that would work. So, I started a pilot program uh, a year later. Over 4,000 folks applied for that. Unfortunately, the pilot program couldn't accommodate all of them, but we were able to keep over 1,200 people from hitting the streets. In order to qualify, they had to say that they would be homeless within 6 months and then have financial proof that that was the case. That's been very helpful. I I'm proud to say over the last three years, I've lowered homelessness in my district. I'm the only supervisor that has consistently lowered homelessness by double digits each and every year. Last this last year in our point in time count, I had lowered it by 37%. And a lot of this has to do with the shallow rent subsidy and safe parking and working with wraparound services to help get those seniors off the street or prevent them from becoming homeless. Now, we're looking and we see a bunch of taxes coming our way. Uh, there's a proposed tax on real estate, a real estate transfer tax that's 6%. So, if you owned a million-dollar home uh and you sold it, you'd have to pay $60,000. And while people say, "Well, you have a million-dollar home," but what if you're a senior on fixed income and that million is your care with a home that is meant for dementia? You know, we have a lot of seniors that are facing dementia, uh, early stages and further stages. How are they going to use that money to to make sure they can still live independently in one of those senior homes?
Now, when you mentioned your program, how much was the subsidy? How much do these seniors need to help them get by?
The study said $500 would work. And so that's a small price to pay.
$500 a month? Just that's?
Correct.
That's it. And and so, you know, keeping 1,200 people from becoming homeless, that was huge. Now, you know, it's it it makes it difficult to make sure that it's sustainable. Initially, we only put a million dollars into it. We could only help 400 people. 2,800 people applied who said that they were going to be homeless within 6 months. And it was just eating at me. So, I went back to the county and I said, "What if we went back to that population of 2400 people that we can't help with the shallow rent subsidy and offered a social worker to help them find a roommate?" So, in some people live in a two-bedroom or a three-bedroom, what if we put two seniors in the same shared cost? Anything would be better than hitting the streets, right? So, that was that was the second thing that uh we moved forward with. Now, we haven't been as successful with it. We still are trying to dial it in. A lot of seniors have not embraced that idea, but if you're looking at becoming homeless, uh, I'd rather live with somebody uh as a roommate than live on the streets alone in a tent. And so, I'm hoping that we can get more success with it moving forward. But we have to be innovative with our ideas. Uh, seniors are at great risk because they're on fixed incomes.
There is an initiative that's going around that they're collecting signatures that's trying to remove the the tax property tax for seniors that are 65 plus. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, uh, I'm old enough to remember in 1978, Howard Jarvis um uh put up Prop 13. And Prop 13 said you couldn't be taxed out of your home because so many seniors were buying their homes for $50, $60, $70,000. And then, like in an area of Orange County, you had all these homes being built around you. 10 years later, and they're million-dollar homes, and your property value went up to a million dollars. So your tax bill was actually greater than your mortgage. And so Prop 13 said you couldn't raise somebody's tax bill from year to year more than 2%. That allowed seniors to anticipate and hold off inflation, and it forced the new homes to buy pay for all the infrastructure required, new sewers, new water pipes, and it didn't burden the people who had already paid for their sewer and their water pipes with these new costs. Now, uh, in California, there's tremendous pressure to remove Prop 13, saying that people aren't paying their fair share. But when in fact, this is why more seniors aren't losing their homes and aren't being taxed out. So, any kind of relief that we can give to seniors to help keep them in their homes is a good thing. We've seen some other propositions. Prop 19 allowed a senior to make a move. So, let's say I retire uh from a home that I purchased in my 40s where I was at my peak earning years, and I had children at home, where it's a four-bedroom, three bath, and now it's just my wife and me, and I want to move to a one or two-bedroom home. If I were to sell my house and move, I would uh be hit with enormous taxes doing that. So, people felt frozen and they couldn't move down in home and downsize. Under Prop 19, they can keep their tax base, move to that smaller home. And um, I know that you live in California, so you can understand this. In Southern California, we have incredible inflation when it comes to homes. So if I buy a house that's a million dollars today, I can assure you next year it's $1.1 million. So, even if I downsize, my home's 20 years old. My new home is more expensive than what I bought when I bought a four-bedroom, three bath. So, you know, these taxes play an incredible role on quality of life, and it and it changes how people can maneuver in in in our society and what they can afford. So, I think affordability, I love the tax idea of no taxes. Uh, seniors have paid their entire life taxes uh in every aspect, whether it's sales tax, whether it's uh property tax, income tax, all those things. So I I think that that would be a good thing. It would keep more people off the street. One of the surprises is I have not seen any studies showing the true cost of homelessness by individual on the streets. And yet, we know that when we look at uh uh homeless housing projects, it's been reported that some of these apartments are $500,000, a million dollars each. And we know that cost to address the homeless is the most expensive cost that we have in society. And yet, when it comes to seniors, what better lesson we can teach our children than to actually help seniors off the streets and prevent them from going to the streets? You know, if we want to teach our kids how to treat us as we get older, then we better be good to our parents. And and that's an important lesson.
Well, thank you so much, Joe Anderson, C County Supervisor from San Diego. It's great to have you on California Center.
It's always my pleasure. Keep up the great work. I love I love what you do.
Tell us what you think about the seniors in California. Do you think we should do more for Californians who are older? Make sure to tell us in the comments or email us at siamakc@californiasider.com. We read all of your emails and comments. I'm Sam Kurami. This is California Insider. We'll see you next time.