October 21, 2025 • 43 mins
On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Capital Research Center President Scott Walter joins Federalist Senior Elections Correspondent Matt Kittle to dive into the data detailing how radicals and extremists are using nonprofits aimed at helping the homeless to achieve leftist political ends.
Read the report "Infiltrated: The Ideological Capture of Homelessness Advocacy" here.
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Read the report "Infiltrated: The Ideological Capture of Homelessness Advocacy" here.
If you care about combating the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experience shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
(00:40):
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Scott Walter, president of the Capital
Research Center. We discuss the Government to Watchdog's new report
exposing how extremist ideological movements are exploiting America's homelessness crisis.
This one hundred and thirteen page report by Capital Research
(01:04):
Center in cooperation with the Discovery Institute, is a deep
dive into a serious issue, radicalizing an area that well,
a lot of people might least suspect. Scott, thank you
as always for joining us on this edition of the
Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Absolutely, this is a deep dive report. I mean, you folks,
you dug into financial data, legal records. This is a
lot of original research. Let's just put it simply. This
is a lot of work to get into the myriad
leftist organizations, Marxist organizations that are co opting homelessness advocacy
(01:48):
for their political ends. If you wouldn't mind, How did
this come about and what did your research find?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, the discovery is gets the credit really because they
are They are one of the top places and have
been for years in studying what their former staffer and
all Star Christopher Ruffo describes as the homelessness industrial complex.
(02:23):
So they have dug into that and also into the
good and bad policies for dealing with the homeless for years.
But one of the things they have been noticing in
recently is how radicalized so many of the groups active
in homeless advocacy have become. And so they came to
(02:45):
us at Capital Research Center. Our specialty is precisely left
wing nonprofits causing problems, so we collaborated on a report
that deals with both policy issues but also really describes
in detail the whole landscape of groups fighting in this
(03:12):
area and how they've gotten radicalized many of them, and
how in general they've just drifted leftward into you know,
more and more problematic territory.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You and I have been in this business for a
time investigating organizations like this. So I don't think either
neither of us is surprised when we hear that a nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization is engaged in extreme political activity or advocacy
(03:47):
coming from an extreme point of view. That said, these
are the same people that keep telling us over and
over again that you know that that conservatives are terrible
because they're not dealing with the homelessness crisis impacting our cities.
(04:08):
And yet these cities have been taken over, as you report,
by these so called non partisan organizations that have deep,
deep ties to far left movements and are indeed themselves
vocal players in the far left.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Absolutely, In fact, I love you know, not good media
outlets like the Federalist, but bad media outlets will literally
tell you something like, well, I mean a C three
that groups of C three, so it has to be
nonpartisan and non political. Right, So it's yes, it's thank
(04:54):
you for reporting on this honestly, and shame on all
those who will not report on it.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, it's amazing that the idea is to assist the
homeless from moving from being homeless, if that is possible.
Some people want to be homeless, and there's not much
you can do about that. But for those who are
out of their homes, the idea is to find policies
that effectively work. These organizations don't seem to be at
(05:27):
least as interested in that in the outcome as they
are in terms of using the homeless and using the
homelessness issue for their political ends. Give us a few
examples of the organizations that you've tracked, and I know
there are dozens of them here.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, it's it's the report literally goes through dozens, even hundreds.
There's so many of them, some of the really radical ones.
And again I'm not saying every homeless group is as
bad as these, but one of them is the Western
Regional Advocacy Project that the acronym is wrap like uh
(06:10):
like gift rap, but they're no gift surprise, surprise. The
TIDES network has helped to send money there. And these
are just really your garden variety looney lefties. I mean
the they hate police. They push for the utter abolishment
(06:31):
of police, uh, which is you know what what what
would we guess that what percentage of Americans is in
favor of that five percent? Eight percent? Maybe mar so
so in which, by the way, that means we need
to we need to be emphatic these the people who
support them, the people who are in the groups like that,
(06:53):
and the people who run cover for them, like the
major media. Uh, those folks are democracy suppressors because America
does not want that sort of thing at all, and
yet that's what these people are pushing. By the way,
they this that same group rap Adores Asada Shakur, who
(07:16):
recently went to her reward people. You have to be
of a certain age to remember, but she was convicted
of helping kill kill cops, not just abolish the police,
kill cops. She was sprung from prison by fellow radicals
and spent the rest of her life in that bastion
of liberation known as Cuba. So and these folks are
(07:43):
you know, but she's a hero to these folks. The
Autonomous Tenants Union Network is another really radical one. One
of the things that the port makes clear is, you know,
if you're a sufficiently crazed radical, you are for every
lefty thing there is, right. So, yes, they care about homelessness,
(08:05):
but you know what, they also care about Palestine, and
they think it's swell that the Palestinians are killing lots
of Jews, and or as I said, they want to
you know, just abolish the police, another popular thing, all
these different nuttinesses, they endorse them all.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I would say that, you know, there are many many
people in this country who are concerned about the homeless
problem and they really legitimately want to help to do something.
So many of them are giving to organizations like this,
but they're doing so under false pretenses or maybe sometimes
(08:45):
quite frankly, it's ignorance. They're not they're not looking in.
But Capital Research has done exhaustive reports on this, you
know network, as well as others in the leftist movement.
But I would imagine there are people who hate the
whole Free Palestine movement from the river to the sea,
you know, the idea that is really behind that, which
(09:08):
is the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people. They
wouldn't be in favor of that. But they think about
the work, or they just know about the work that
the groups that you're mentioning claim to be doing in
homelessness advocacy. Are they effective at all in what they
(09:29):
claim to be doing?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Well? First of all, thanks for using the word advocacy,
because you know, if you genuinely care about the homeless,
then direct services to the homeless people should be a
higher priority for you than advocacy, right, And that's what
(09:54):
as you say, people will donate to groups, or people
will support public policies that in government funding in this area.
But what the huge majority of Americans assume that all
means is actually helping people. Right, Let me help you
get off the substance that has enslaved you. Let me
(10:15):
help you get mental health care if you have serious
mental health issues. Right, that's what people want. But these
groups are ever more into advocacy and also litigation, right,
suing and screaming. How's that for a shorthand? And you
know that's the ability of that to help the hardcore
(10:38):
homeless is very limited, especially when what they're advocating for
and litigating for is often things like oh, we can't
absolutely can't have anything that is going to get take
a single person off the streets, because of course, lord,
you know, not only do these people so not only
do these the the radicals, not only do they not
(11:03):
care about actually helping homeless people, but they certainly don't
care about helping the small business owner who doesn't get
a lot of traffic to his store when there's human
feces surrounding his front door. Maybe somebody passed out in
this front doorway.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
If you're in a city that needs maps, excrement maps
to tell you where the homeless have defecated, and you're
operating as a business in that city, you can understand
the frustration. We've seen that in San Francisco, We've seen
that in Portland, We've seen that in major cities up
and down the way, in no small part, in fact,
(11:43):
in large part, because these advocacy groups, these radical advuracy groups,
are tied in with the Democrat liberal administrations in these cities.
How deep does that go? According to your report.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Well, this, right, that's one of the central problems with
the advocacy as opposed to actually serving people issues. Right,
If you are a factor in local politics, local politicians
are going to glom onto you no matter what. Now
(12:22):
one presumes in most cases this is you know, both
sides are very happy to be attached to each other.
But even if you weren't trying to do that, as
soon as you become a political force, local politicians are
absolutely they're going to be trying to co opt you
or work with you get your support for their next reelection.
(12:43):
And again, who's not being cared about in this folks
suffering on the streets or ordinary citizens suffering from the
chaos of their city streets.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It is the chaos too, because we mention the disorder
that's involved, obviously the homelessness crisis, the impact on businesses,
but the impact on crime is something that is major.
It's so significant, and yet we're not dealing with that.
And certainly, based on what I'm reading in your report,
(13:16):
these advocacy groups aren't dealing with that.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
No, they're not in right, but that, for what it's worth,
by the way, that is another cruel bit of evidence
of how they harm the homeless people they claim to
be speaking in favor of. You know, I go regularly
to mass at the cathedral in DC, and I know
the guys who've you been hanging around the cathedral for years,
(13:42):
and guess what, when they're on the street, they are
often victims of crime. Now, it's so despicable, right, you think,
But if you're a criminal, right, you don't you are
a despicable person. And a homeless guy is about as
helpless as it gets. Right, So I'm going to go
(14:04):
steal even what little, tiny pittance of the things that
he has. So by keeping these folks on the street,
which is effectively what the left is doing, they are
not just failing to get them the kind of help
that they need, but they're also letting them be victims
of crime day after day after day.
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Speaker 1 (15:02):
And the other part of that is that the victims
of crime are victims of you know, mental illness that is,
you know, so endemic in the homeless community. There is
a great deal of mental illness. Not all of it
is violent, but there is uh violent mental illness involved
(15:25):
in this, and we're seeing and we have seen a
growth in those crimes committed by homeless people who should
be in a different place, certainly for the safety of
the public and the safety of themselves.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No, you're absolutely right. That is one of the that's
one of the most infuriating things because again, you know
what proportion of Americans think that a schizophrenic problems will
be solved by giving him, you know, some government funded housing. Yeah,
you stick him in there, and boy, that's schizophrenia just gone.
(16:01):
Overwhelming majorities of our democracy know that that's crazy and wrong,
and yet in most of our major cities that is
officially the policy. And you're a bigot and a monster
if you don't sign up in agreement.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
That is a huge problem impacting how we look at
this issue, the demonization from the left and anybody who
is actually truly trying to help and solve the problem.
Let's talk about advocacy in a different direction. Although many
of the players that you note here are involved in
(16:40):
a lot of these major street protests, the no Kings
operations that of course we read all about over the
past weekend, when a portion of the population decided to
go out into the streets and celebrate, in part the
assassination of conservative leader. Beyond that, we have seen these
(17:04):
organizations involved in that leftisc movement, have we not, And
correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they enlisting some
homeless people in this cause as well?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Oh? Well, the left, the radical left, is always trying
to just get people out into the streets over whatever
the issue may be. They don't care what the issue is.
You know, remember the sixties radical who famously said the
issue is never the issue, The issue is always the revolution.
(17:40):
So it could be COVID or George Floyd or Michael
Brown or homelessness or ice, doesn't matter. Just get people
in the streets, and you know they're happy to exploit
the homeless in all of those places. A lot of
the folks you see, you know, at a glance you
(18:02):
can tell, like, wow, look at the face on that person.
That person's not mentally healthy, right. A lot of their
most reliable protesters have mental health issues. So the schizophrenic
homeless guy, hey, he fits right in.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
That is amazing to me because again, these are the
organizations that are claiming they are all about helping the homeless. Really, ultimately,
in these sorts of cases the no Kings, present protest
and others that we've seen over the last nine months,
in particular in this country, they're taking they're clearly taking
(18:42):
advantage of the people that they claim they're trying to help. Unfortunately,
that is a story that is not told very often
in the usual mainstream, so called mainstream media of the
accomplist media.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I know you're right, and and remember, for the radical left,
the homeless are especially valuable because the essence of the
radicalism in its creed is that America is a horrible country.
That's why she needs to be torn down, and radical
(19:19):
transformation has to happen, revolution, whatever term you like. And
the value for that creed of the homeless is to
be able to point to the people suffering on the
streets and say, see what a horrible country is this is.
That's why that person's suffering on the street. And of
course the fact that like, well, you know, his schizophrenia,
(19:41):
this guy's schizophrenia might have something to do with it,
and that woman's fentyl addiction might have something to do
with her. You know, I'm not sure that it's America
that gave her a fentel addition addiction, But yes, they
want to be able to show that chaos, disorder, and
suffering as alleged evidence for the awfulness of America.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and
Newman chants upon a petticab or rickshaw and they decide
that the best employees for their business are the homeless
because they're already there and they know their way around
the streets. That is what.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That is what.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
This whole enlistment of homeless in radical left causes and
demonstrations reminds me of. It's it's just it's amazing, although
it shouldn't be that surprising because that's what the radical
left has done for a long time. It seems like
they're picking up the pace in this area, are they not?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
No?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I think I think that's true. And you know, obviously
we haven't talked about the Ice riots as well, which
again political talk about political violence. You know, cops have
been shot. It's the same as again, it's the same thing.
The issue is never the issue, The issue is always
(21:06):
the revolution.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Indeed, our guest today is Scott Walter, president of Capital
Research Center. The Capital Research Center along with in cooperation
with The Discovery Institute has a great new deep dive
one hundred and thirteen page report. It is called Infiltrated,
the Ideological Capture of Homelessness Advocacy, and they have, you know,
(21:33):
they've really gone into researching these organizations that claim to
be helping the homeless when actually they are using the
homeless not just for the issues the leftist issues that
they're trying and all kinds of leftist issues they're trying
to promote, but actually, as we just noted, truly using
(21:56):
the homeless for their ends. The folks have gone into
the numbers here, we're talking about billions of dollars in
taxpayer dollars and philanthropic grants on all of this sort
of stuff. How much have you been able to track
(22:17):
going into these leftist so called nonpartisan organizations.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, as you say, the numbers reach into the billions,
and those are the two big sources, the big philanthropy
and big government. And so that's another reason for people
to care about this. Your tax dollars have gone into
(22:48):
have gone into these groups that are doing so much
harm and preventing preventing progress. Right. The report looks at
the grant's past case. This is a town in Oregon
where they passed an ordinance again democratically, right, the actual
democratic majority of the place wants not to have encampments
(23:13):
of the homeless and public, and they were sued in
over seven hundred homeless groups. We're in on the law
you know, we're boosting the lawsuit to try to stop
this perfectly rational, this perfectly rational policy.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
At the end of the day, you mentioned it before,
this is not democracy. This is not what the vast
majority of Americans want, and a lot of Americans simply
want to help the homeless. But again, we have this
situation where we have, you know, these leftist groups fighting
for what he is not in the interest of the
(23:58):
general public.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, no, that's that's absolutely right, and on the interest
of those they claim to be speaking for, right, but
on the left. That's so that's so clear. Uh. You know,
the groups that claim to speak for women have not
made women's lives better. The groups that claim to speak
for ethnic groups or black folks for the rest, they
(24:22):
are not actually causing those folks to have better lives.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Are any Have any of these organizations been held accountable
for their conduct and for what they're doing. You know,
I think about Stacy Abrams in her new Georgia project.
You know, the Georgia Ethics Commission earlier this year found
(24:50):
that basically that that Stacy Abrams founded organization was set
up to help Stacy Abram get elected as governor of
Georgia failed on both occasions, but they paid. I think
it was the highest fine for abusing election law campaign
(25:15):
finance law in the history not only of Georgia, but
I think this country. And that's what this reminds me of.
There seems like, according to what you folks, have found,
lots of abuses of taxpayer, taxpayers in general, community interest
and the interest of the homeless in general.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
No, no, you're right. The report has pages and pages
where we provide so you can see. I mean, it's
not happy reading, but can show you the government grants
going into so many of these folks and for how much.
And again I don't say that there are no people
(26:03):
in nonprofits who with a mission to serve the homeless.
You know, there are people in there who are genuinely
trying to help homeless people. But again, the left, it's
it's such a temptation to the left to abuse all
of this that they can't resist it, and over time
(26:25):
these groups have drifted ever more leftward until now you
even have you know, violent radical groups getting mixed up
in this.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Well you mentioned it before, how much of this homelessness
advocacy is really just the pretense for the sort of
violence we've seen against federal agents like the attack on
ICE agents on a regular basis. But I'm thinking about,
you know, the the violence in Texas where the radical
(26:58):
was was shooting at the ICE agents but ended up
killing to ilegal immigrants in custody. Are these some of
these groups connected with that violent arm that we are
seeing more and more of in this country.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well, there's some group connections. And especially you have to
understand the way that activists themselves work, right, not all,
certainly not all activists are violent, but the activists that
are the most violent, they typically have day jobs, right,
(27:35):
They typically will will do other things, and in many
cases they will be members of local groups that are
not themselves so violent, or at least not publicly and
explicitly so violent, but they'll have some staff members who
are that way. And it's and by the way, it's
(27:55):
always been this way. If you think back to the sixties, right,
Students for Democratic Society was not itself out there committing
you know, lots of violence, and it was the largish group,
but there was a splinter group within it, the weather
underground they were building bombs and try and otherwise trying
to kill people. So, you know, the a group that
(28:19):
is not especially devoted to violence may nonetheless be a
sanctuary for some very violent people.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Are they radicalizing homeless individuals as well? I mean, we
talked about getting the homeless involved in these protests and
these sorts of things. Are they pushing members of the
homeless community, if you will, or homeless people into radical
violence causes?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Well, I can't say that off the top of my head.
I can think of specific instances actually of turning actual
homeless folks violent. However, as I said, they the true
radicals who are violent, are very happy to have the
homeless as props in protests, right, I mean, this is
(29:12):
the this is again part of the whole scheme for
the for the real radicals. You get people out in
the streets, you have protests, and that provides cover. Maybe
most of the folks out there are not going to
be violent, but they're providing cover for the people who
are going to be violent and an excuse, right, we're
(29:33):
so angry about the problem of homelessness that we're going
to destroy a business, We're going to beat up cops,
We're going to assault a federal facility.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
One of the great, one of the great tragedies in
all of this is that, unfortunately, a significant number of
homeless in America are veterans of serving their country in
the military. They have served in very dangerous places in
theaters of war. And these are the groups that the
(30:07):
federal government and state governments and philanthropy organizations are paying
to in essence, as your report finds, not really help
these homeless veterans. That to me is among the most
sickening crimes going on exposed by your report.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Well, well, thank you, And as somebody with a lot
of friends current and former military, that means a lot
to me. And you know, it's again, it's totally understandable
that you know, people who served in combat or people
who have to make the painful transition back to ordinary
(30:50):
life from the military life. It is totally understandable. They
can have mental health issues, or they could have struggles
that lead them into substance abuse. I want to help
those people. The overwhelming majority of Americans want to help
those people. But don't tell me, oh, I'm helping those people.
(31:13):
Prove you're actually helping them. I'm not going to give
anybody the benefit of the doubt. It's not easy to
help people who are suffering like this, and there are
better and worse and more and less successful efforts to
help them, and we need to understand that and make
those distinctions.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Indeed, contrary to the corporate media line and the Democrats
line that antifa is just an idea, it's just a concept,
this is an organized effort at the local levels in particular.
But there is a nexus here that's involved in the
(31:57):
so called anti fascist movement, which is real nothing more
than the tearing down, the destruction, including violence of the
you know, the American form of government. All of that said,
do you have is there a tracking of these organizations
working closely with or tethered to the antifa movement in
(32:20):
this country?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Well, as I said, the the it's less organizational connections, uh,
than it is activists associations. You can find antifa activists
who also work in who you know, also are attached
(32:46):
to more public, less violent groups and by the way
if you if you for one of my favorite simple
things on are they organized? You just have to go
to Torch hyphen antifa dot org and that's the website for
the Torch Network, which connects to works with a variety
(33:12):
of local Antifa groups, including Rose City Antifa. That'd be
the Portland Antifa folks. And Andy know who's one of
the best reporters on this. Try telling him that Antifa
is just an idea and let him show you the
cat scans of the brain bleed that that idea produced
(33:35):
in his skull.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, absolutely, there are. Andy is great. I know a
number of reporters who've been on the ground in Portland
and have been on the ground really since the Black
Lives Matter movement, And that brings up a good point too.
You see a lot of these groups, don't you, that
we're in the Black Lives Matter movement move over to
(33:57):
the so called advocacy groups those sorts of things, or
tied to Antifa and the radical left violence movement as well.
I'm curious because as you look at the funding, you
see the diversion of funds, and not just the diversion
of funds, but we all know that funding is fungible,
(34:20):
that is, it can be moved around for different purposes.
How much has and I know this is just the
you know, the opening salval, but how much so far
do you know has the Trump administration's push to end
funding to these far left radical groups, at least federal funding.
(34:42):
How much has that impacted this network of advocacy groups
so far?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Well, it's certainly made a difference. And it's the first,
you know, the first time in my lifetime that there's
been any kind of serious pushback on these kinds of things.
But I am confident that it is not a high
(35:10):
percentage of the total funding, partly because you know, so
much of that federal money it doesn't go immediately to
local back groups. It goes first to a state, and
then the state makes grants to cities, and then the
cities make grants to local folks. It's very hard to
track all this money. It's very hard to turn off
(35:31):
those bigots.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Those pickets, of course, have flowed all over the place.
We've seen them not just in this country but in
other countries, and Capital Research Center has reported on that,
and it's difficult to stop. I would imagine the other sources,
the billionaire sources that are funding this movement too. You
(35:56):
mentioned tides before, but how many of the sorows grew
so the other far left socialist communist groups are involved
in this?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Well, you're right, given that we're talking billions of dollars,
there is lots and lots of big philanthropy money, which
means left wing money, by the way, often captured. You know,
let us not forget you have leftists spending dead billionaires money, right,
(36:30):
I promise you Henry Ford would not want any of
his money going to anything like this, or James MacArthur
Andrew Carnegie. But yes, it's it's extremely popular among the
big philanthropy outlets.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Are they picking up where the federal government is leaving
off so to speak? Are they filling those funding gaps?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Well, they definitely are talking among themselves about doing that. Now,
they may or may not be able to fully do it,
but they certainly are. They will do some backfilling, you
can be sure of that.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yes, do you expect given your report and some other
very good reporting we've seen in recent months about the
waste and the abuse of federal funds and donor funds,
do you see Congress getting involved in this obviously the
(37:36):
President has through executive orders, but do you see Congress saying, listen,
this is a growing this has been a growing problem
for a long time. We need to rain this stuff in.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
I think there's some hope for that, but again, it's
you know, this is a huge task to take on.
It is not going to be easy. And every time
you try to do anything, it's going to be you know,
you want people dying in the streets, right, that's going
to be the So it is not at all going
(38:18):
to be an easy an easy task, and Congress has
limited investigative capacities unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Indeed, and Congress of course can't do its basic functions
of putting together a budget or getting to a continuing resolution.
So I don't know how much faith I have in
Congress doing anything about really any issue out there. This
one is going to have to be solved, I think,
(38:49):
like so many others, by individuals who have the benefit
of reading reports like this. Final question for you, Scott,
what happens to the homeless if we continue and the
homelessness issue if we continue to allow these leftist advocacy
(39:09):
groups serve them. As you point out very well in
your report at the disadvantage of these groups.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Well, you are absolutely right to ask that question. And
of course the sad answer is, if we continue with
the horrible policies, then we are going to get the
horrible results and with more and more people. And that's
that's so sad the but God bless you for doing
(39:42):
this kind of reporting. You know, one of the most
poignant things on this area that I've read is Nellie
Bowles has a chapter in her latest book. Of course,
I'm going to forget the name. You know, she is
a left wing lesbian native of San Francisco. Right, this
(40:03):
is not a right winger, but she was a reporter
and in San Francisco. As a reporter, she wanted to
see what happened in the harm reduction program as they
like to call it, which is to say, the curing
(40:23):
addiction by giving people clean needles and the like. And
she wanted to go into one of the tents where
they reduce harm for ventanyl and heroin addicts and the like.
They absolutely would not let her in. Now, mind you,
was all publicly funded, so it seems like as a
San Francisco taxpayer, she has a right to go see
(40:46):
what wonderful things her tax dollars are paying for, but
they would not allow it. So she simply so she
just watched people go in come out. And this is
one of the things she's not nearly as left wing
as she was because thing like this have you know,
persuaded her. My god, the standard left wing narratives are
(41:07):
not helping people. I mean, she called that. I think
her term in the end was like, these are suicide tents.
These are not harm reduction tents. So you know, this
is the horrible, ugly truth. We're going to have more
people die on the streets. We're going to have more
people on the streets.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And just remember that the
same people who are preaching anti racism or as it
really is, discrimination to combat discrimination, are the same people
who are coming up with these tents. So they control
(41:49):
they try to control the language. But I think you're right.
I think a lot of Americans are waking up. They
certainly did in the last election. We will see it's
going to take information from organizations like yours to move
that along. We'll see how long though the American voter
can stay awake. That's the important part here. This is
(42:12):
a fantastic report It is called Infiltrated, the Ideological Capture
of Homelessness Advocacy. It is produced by Capital Research Center
in cooperation with the Discovery Institute. Thanks to my guest today,
Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, you've been listening
(42:32):
to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon
with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom, anxious for
the frame
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Her the fas reason
And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experience shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
(00:40):
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Scott Walter, president of the Capital
Research Center. We discuss the Government to Watchdog's new report
exposing how extremist ideological movements are exploiting America's homelessness crisis.
This one hundred and thirteen page report by Capital Research
(01:04):
Center in cooperation with the Discovery Institute, is a deep
dive into a serious issue, radicalizing an area that well,
a lot of people might least suspect. Scott, thank you
as always for joining us on this edition of the
Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Absolutely, this is a deep dive report. I mean, you folks,
you dug into financial data, legal records. This is a
lot of original research. Let's just put it simply. This
is a lot of work to get into the myriad
leftist organizations, Marxist organizations that are co opting homelessness advocacy
(01:48):
for their political ends. If you wouldn't mind, How did
this come about and what did your research find?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, the discovery is gets the credit really because they
are They are one of the top places and have
been for years in studying what their former staffer and
all Star Christopher Ruffo describes as the homelessness industrial complex.
(02:23):
So they have dug into that and also into the
good and bad policies for dealing with the homeless for years.
But one of the things they have been noticing in
recently is how radicalized so many of the groups active
in homeless advocacy have become. And so they came to
(02:45):
us at Capital Research Center. Our specialty is precisely left
wing nonprofits causing problems, so we collaborated on a report
that deals with both policy issues but also really describes
in detail the whole landscape of groups fighting in this
(03:12):
area and how they've gotten radicalized many of them, and
how in general they've just drifted leftward into you know,
more and more problematic territory.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You and I have been in this business for a
time investigating organizations like this. So I don't think either
neither of us is surprised when we hear that a nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization is engaged in extreme political activity or advocacy
(03:47):
coming from an extreme point of view. That said, these
are the same people that keep telling us over and
over again that you know that that conservatives are terrible
because they're not dealing with the homelessness crisis impacting our cities.
(04:08):
And yet these cities have been taken over, as you report,
by these so called non partisan organizations that have deep,
deep ties to far left movements and are indeed themselves
vocal players in the far left.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Absolutely, In fact, I love you know, not good media
outlets like the Federalist, but bad media outlets will literally
tell you something like, well, I mean a C three
that groups of C three, so it has to be
nonpartisan and non political. Right, So it's yes, it's thank
(04:54):
you for reporting on this honestly, and shame on all
those who will not report on it.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, it's amazing that the idea is to assist the
homeless from moving from being homeless, if that is possible.
Some people want to be homeless, and there's not much
you can do about that. But for those who are
out of their homes, the idea is to find policies
that effectively work. These organizations don't seem to be at
(05:27):
least as interested in that in the outcome as they
are in terms of using the homeless and using the
homelessness issue for their political ends. Give us a few
examples of the organizations that you've tracked, and I know
there are dozens of them here.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, it's it's the report literally goes through dozens, even hundreds.
There's so many of them, some of the really radical ones.
And again I'm not saying every homeless group is as
bad as these, but one of them is the Western
Regional Advocacy Project that the acronym is wrap like uh
(06:10):
like gift rap, but they're no gift surprise, surprise. The
TIDES network has helped to send money there. And these
are just really your garden variety looney lefties. I mean
the they hate police. They push for the utter abolishment
(06:31):
of police, uh, which is you know what what what
would we guess that what percentage of Americans is in
favor of that five percent? Eight percent? Maybe mar so
so in which, by the way, that means we need
to we need to be emphatic these the people who
support them, the people who are in the groups like that,
(06:53):
and the people who run cover for them, like the
major media. Uh, those folks are democracy suppressors because America
does not want that sort of thing at all, and
yet that's what these people are pushing. By the way,
they this that same group rap Adores Asada Shakur, who
(07:16):
recently went to her reward people. You have to be
of a certain age to remember, but she was convicted
of helping kill kill cops, not just abolish the police,
kill cops. She was sprung from prison by fellow radicals
and spent the rest of her life in that bastion
of liberation known as Cuba. So and these folks are
(07:43):
you know, but she's a hero to these folks. The
Autonomous Tenants Union Network is another really radical one. One
of the things that the port makes clear is, you know,
if you're a sufficiently crazed radical, you are for every
lefty thing there is, right. So, yes, they care about homelessness,
(08:05):
but you know what, they also care about Palestine, and
they think it's swell that the Palestinians are killing lots
of Jews, and or as I said, they want to
you know, just abolish the police, another popular thing, all
these different nuttinesses, they endorse them all.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I would say that, you know, there are many many
people in this country who are concerned about the homeless
problem and they really legitimately want to help to do something.
So many of them are giving to organizations like this,
but they're doing so under false pretenses or maybe sometimes
(08:45):
quite frankly, it's ignorance. They're not they're not looking in.
But Capital Research has done exhaustive reports on this, you
know network, as well as others in the leftist movement.
But I would imagine there are people who hate the
whole Free Palestine movement from the river to the sea,
you know, the idea that is really behind that, which
(09:08):
is the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people. They
wouldn't be in favor of that. But they think about
the work, or they just know about the work that
the groups that you're mentioning claim to be doing in
homelessness advocacy. Are they effective at all in what they
(09:29):
claim to be doing?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Well? First of all, thanks for using the word advocacy,
because you know, if you genuinely care about the homeless,
then direct services to the homeless people should be a
higher priority for you than advocacy, right, And that's what
(09:54):
as you say, people will donate to groups, or people
will support public policies that in government funding in this area.
But what the huge majority of Americans assume that all
means is actually helping people. Right, Let me help you
get off the substance that has enslaved you. Let me
(10:15):
help you get mental health care if you have serious
mental health issues. Right, that's what people want. But these
groups are ever more into advocacy and also litigation, right,
suing and screaming. How's that for a shorthand? And you
know that's the ability of that to help the hardcore
(10:38):
homeless is very limited, especially when what they're advocating for
and litigating for is often things like oh, we can't
absolutely can't have anything that is going to get take
a single person off the streets, because of course, lord,
you know, not only do these people so not only
do these the the radicals, not only do they not
(11:03):
care about actually helping homeless people, but they certainly don't
care about helping the small business owner who doesn't get
a lot of traffic to his store when there's human
feces surrounding his front door. Maybe somebody passed out in
this front doorway.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
If you're in a city that needs maps, excrement maps
to tell you where the homeless have defecated, and you're
operating as a business in that city, you can understand
the frustration. We've seen that in San Francisco, We've seen
that in Portland, We've seen that in major cities up
and down the way, in no small part, in fact,
(11:43):
in large part, because these advocacy groups, these radical advuracy groups,
are tied in with the Democrat liberal administrations in these cities.
How deep does that go? According to your report.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Well, this, right, that's one of the central problems with
the advocacy as opposed to actually serving people issues. Right,
If you are a factor in local politics, local politicians
are going to glom onto you no matter what. Now
(12:22):
one presumes in most cases this is you know, both
sides are very happy to be attached to each other.
But even if you weren't trying to do that, as
soon as you become a political force, local politicians are
absolutely they're going to be trying to co opt you
or work with you get your support for their next reelection.
(12:43):
And again, who's not being cared about in this folks
suffering on the streets or ordinary citizens suffering from the
chaos of their city streets.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It is the chaos too, because we mention the disorder
that's involved, obviously the homelessness crisis, the impact on businesses,
but the impact on crime is something that is major.
It's so significant, and yet we're not dealing with that.
And certainly, based on what I'm reading in your report,
(13:16):
these advocacy groups aren't dealing with that.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
No, they're not in right, but that, for what it's worth,
by the way, that is another cruel bit of evidence
of how they harm the homeless people they claim to
be speaking in favor of. You know, I go regularly
to mass at the cathedral in DC, and I know
the guys who've you been hanging around the cathedral for years,
(13:42):
and guess what, when they're on the street, they are
often victims of crime. Now, it's so despicable, right, you think,
But if you're a criminal, right, you don't you are
a despicable person. And a homeless guy is about as
helpless as it gets. Right, So I'm going to go
(14:04):
steal even what little, tiny pittance of the things that
he has. So by keeping these folks on the street,
which is effectively what the left is doing, they are
not just failing to get them the kind of help
that they need, but they're also letting them be victims
of crime day after day after day.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
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(14:51):
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Speaker 2 (14:54):
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Speaker 1 (15:02):
And the other part of that is that the victims
of crime are victims of you know, mental illness that is,
you know, so endemic in the homeless community. There is
a great deal of mental illness. Not all of it
is violent, but there is uh violent mental illness involved
(15:25):
in this, and we're seeing and we have seen a
growth in those crimes committed by homeless people who should
be in a different place, certainly for the safety of
the public and the safety of themselves.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No, you're absolutely right. That is one of the that's
one of the most infuriating things because again, you know
what proportion of Americans think that a schizophrenic problems will
be solved by giving him, you know, some government funded housing. Yeah,
you stick him in there, and boy, that's schizophrenia just gone.
(16:01):
Overwhelming majorities of our democracy know that that's crazy and wrong,
and yet in most of our major cities that is
officially the policy. And you're a bigot and a monster
if you don't sign up in agreement.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
That is a huge problem impacting how we look at
this issue, the demonization from the left and anybody who
is actually truly trying to help and solve the problem.
Let's talk about advocacy in a different direction. Although many
of the players that you note here are involved in
(16:40):
a lot of these major street protests, the no Kings
operations that of course we read all about over the
past weekend, when a portion of the population decided to
go out into the streets and celebrate, in part the
assassination of conservative leader. Beyond that, we have seen these
(17:04):
organizations involved in that leftisc movement, have we not, And
correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they enlisting some
homeless people in this cause as well?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Oh? Well, the left, the radical left, is always trying
to just get people out into the streets over whatever
the issue may be. They don't care what the issue is.
You know, remember the sixties radical who famously said the
issue is never the issue, The issue is always the revolution.
(17:40):
So it could be COVID or George Floyd or Michael
Brown or homelessness or ice, doesn't matter. Just get people
in the streets, and you know they're happy to exploit
the homeless in all of those places. A lot of
the folks you see, you know, at a glance you
(18:02):
can tell, like, wow, look at the face on that person.
That person's not mentally healthy, right. A lot of their
most reliable protesters have mental health issues. So the schizophrenic
homeless guy, hey, he fits right in.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
That is amazing to me because again, these are the
organizations that are claiming they are all about helping the homeless. Really, ultimately,
in these sorts of cases the no Kings, present protest
and others that we've seen over the last nine months,
in particular in this country, they're taking they're clearly taking
(18:42):
advantage of the people that they claim they're trying to help. Unfortunately,
that is a story that is not told very often
in the usual mainstream, so called mainstream media of the
accomplist media.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I know you're right, and and remember, for the radical left,
the homeless are especially valuable because the essence of the
radicalism in its creed is that America is a horrible country.
That's why she needs to be torn down, and radical
(19:19):
transformation has to happen, revolution, whatever term you like. And
the value for that creed of the homeless is to
be able to point to the people suffering on the
streets and say, see what a horrible country is this is.
That's why that person's suffering on the street. And of
course the fact that like, well, you know, his schizophrenia,
(19:41):
this guy's schizophrenia might have something to do with it,
and that woman's fentyl addiction might have something to do
with her. You know, I'm not sure that it's America
that gave her a fentel addition addiction, But yes, they
want to be able to show that chaos, disorder, and
suffering as alleged evidence for the awfulness of America.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and
Newman chants upon a petticab or rickshaw and they decide
that the best employees for their business are the homeless
because they're already there and they know their way around
the streets. That is what.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That is what.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
This whole enlistment of homeless in radical left causes and
demonstrations reminds me of. It's it's just it's amazing, although
it shouldn't be that surprising because that's what the radical
left has done for a long time. It seems like
they're picking up the pace in this area, are they not?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
No?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I think I think that's true. And you know, obviously
we haven't talked about the Ice riots as well, which
again political talk about political violence. You know, cops have
been shot. It's the same as again, it's the same thing.
The issue is never the issue, The issue is always
(21:06):
the revolution.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Indeed, our guest today is Scott Walter, president of Capital
Research Center. The Capital Research Center along with in cooperation
with The Discovery Institute has a great new deep dive
one hundred and thirteen page report. It is called Infiltrated,
the Ideological Capture of Homelessness Advocacy, and they have, you know,
(21:33):
they've really gone into researching these organizations that claim to
be helping the homeless when actually they are using the
homeless not just for the issues the leftist issues that
they're trying and all kinds of leftist issues they're trying
to promote, but actually, as we just noted, truly using
(21:56):
the homeless for their ends. The folks have gone into
the numbers here, we're talking about billions of dollars in
taxpayer dollars and philanthropic grants on all of this sort
of stuff. How much have you been able to track
(22:17):
going into these leftist so called nonpartisan organizations.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, as you say, the numbers reach into the billions,
and those are the two big sources, the big philanthropy
and big government. And so that's another reason for people
to care about this. Your tax dollars have gone into
(22:48):
have gone into these groups that are doing so much
harm and preventing preventing progress. Right. The report looks at
the grant's past case. This is a town in Oregon
where they passed an ordinance again democratically, right, the actual
democratic majority of the place wants not to have encampments
(23:13):
of the homeless and public, and they were sued in
over seven hundred homeless groups. We're in on the law
you know, we're boosting the lawsuit to try to stop
this perfectly rational, this perfectly rational policy.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
At the end of the day, you mentioned it before,
this is not democracy. This is not what the vast
majority of Americans want, and a lot of Americans simply
want to help the homeless. But again, we have this
situation where we have, you know, these leftist groups fighting
for what he is not in the interest of the
(23:58):
general public.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, no, that's that's absolutely right, and on the interest
of those they claim to be speaking for, right, but
on the left. That's so that's so clear. Uh. You know,
the groups that claim to speak for women have not
made women's lives better. The groups that claim to speak
for ethnic groups or black folks for the rest, they
(24:22):
are not actually causing those folks to have better lives.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Are any Have any of these organizations been held accountable
for their conduct and for what they're doing. You know,
I think about Stacy Abrams in her new Georgia project.
You know, the Georgia Ethics Commission earlier this year found
(24:50):
that basically that that Stacy Abrams founded organization was set
up to help Stacy Abram get elected as governor of
Georgia failed on both occasions, but they paid. I think
it was the highest fine for abusing election law campaign
(25:15):
finance law in the history not only of Georgia, but
I think this country. And that's what this reminds me of.
There seems like, according to what you folks, have found,
lots of abuses of taxpayer, taxpayers in general, community interest
and the interest of the homeless in general.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
No, no, you're right. The report has pages and pages
where we provide so you can see. I mean, it's
not happy reading, but can show you the government grants
going into so many of these folks and for how much.
And again I don't say that there are no people
(26:03):
in nonprofits who with a mission to serve the homeless.
You know, there are people in there who are genuinely
trying to help homeless people. But again, the left, it's
it's such a temptation to the left to abuse all
of this that they can't resist it, and over time
(26:25):
these groups have drifted ever more leftward until now you
even have you know, violent radical groups getting mixed up
in this.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Well you mentioned it before, how much of this homelessness
advocacy is really just the pretense for the sort of
violence we've seen against federal agents like the attack on
ICE agents on a regular basis. But I'm thinking about,
you know, the the violence in Texas where the radical
(26:58):
was was shooting at the ICE agents but ended up
killing to ilegal immigrants in custody. Are these some of
these groups connected with that violent arm that we are
seeing more and more of in this country.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well, there's some group connections. And especially you have to
understand the way that activists themselves work, right, not all,
certainly not all activists are violent, but the activists that
are the most violent, they typically have day jobs, right,
(27:35):
They typically will will do other things, and in many
cases they will be members of local groups that are
not themselves so violent, or at least not publicly and
explicitly so violent, but they'll have some staff members who
are that way. And it's and by the way, it's
(27:55):
always been this way. If you think back to the sixties, right,
Students for Democratic Society was not itself out there committing
you know, lots of violence, and it was the largish group,
but there was a splinter group within it, the weather
underground they were building bombs and try and otherwise trying
to kill people. So, you know, the a group that
(28:19):
is not especially devoted to violence may nonetheless be a
sanctuary for some very violent people.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Are they radicalizing homeless individuals as well? I mean, we
talked about getting the homeless involved in these protests and
these sorts of things. Are they pushing members of the
homeless community, if you will, or homeless people into radical
violence causes?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Well, I can't say that off the top of my head.
I can think of specific instances actually of turning actual
homeless folks violent. However, as I said, they the true
radicals who are violent, are very happy to have the
homeless as props in protests, right, I mean, this is
(29:12):
the this is again part of the whole scheme for
the for the real radicals. You get people out in
the streets, you have protests, and that provides cover. Maybe
most of the folks out there are not going to
be violent, but they're providing cover for the people who
are going to be violent and an excuse, right, we're
(29:33):
so angry about the problem of homelessness that we're going
to destroy a business, We're going to beat up cops,
We're going to assault a federal facility.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
One of the great, one of the great tragedies in
all of this is that, unfortunately, a significant number of
homeless in America are veterans of serving their country in
the military. They have served in very dangerous places in
theaters of war. And these are the groups that the
(30:07):
federal government and state governments and philanthropy organizations are paying
to in essence, as your report finds, not really help
these homeless veterans. That to me is among the most
sickening crimes going on exposed by your report.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Well, well, thank you, And as somebody with a lot
of friends current and former military, that means a lot
to me. And you know, it's again, it's totally understandable
that you know, people who served in combat or people
who have to make the painful transition back to ordinary
(30:50):
life from the military life. It is totally understandable. They
can have mental health issues, or they could have struggles
that lead them into substance abuse. I want to help
those people. The overwhelming majority of Americans want to help
those people. But don't tell me, oh, I'm helping those people.
(31:13):
Prove you're actually helping them. I'm not going to give
anybody the benefit of the doubt. It's not easy to
help people who are suffering like this, and there are
better and worse and more and less successful efforts to
help them, and we need to understand that and make
those distinctions.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Indeed, contrary to the corporate media line and the Democrats
line that antifa is just an idea, it's just a concept,
this is an organized effort at the local levels in particular.
But there is a nexus here that's involved in the
(31:57):
so called anti fascist movement, which is real nothing more
than the tearing down, the destruction, including violence of the
you know, the American form of government. All of that said,
do you have is there a tracking of these organizations
working closely with or tethered to the antifa movement in
(32:20):
this country?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Well, as I said, the the it's less organizational connections, uh,
than it is activists associations. You can find antifa activists
who also work in who you know, also are attached
(32:46):
to more public, less violent groups and by the way
if you if you for one of my favorite simple
things on are they organized? You just have to go
to Torch hyphen antifa dot org and that's the website for
the Torch Network, which connects to works with a variety
(33:12):
of local Antifa groups, including Rose City Antifa. That'd be
the Portland Antifa folks. And Andy know who's one of
the best reporters on this. Try telling him that Antifa
is just an idea and let him show you the
cat scans of the brain bleed that that idea produced
(33:35):
in his skull.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, absolutely, there are. Andy is great. I know a
number of reporters who've been on the ground in Portland
and have been on the ground really since the Black
Lives Matter movement, And that brings up a good point too.
You see a lot of these groups, don't you, that
we're in the Black Lives Matter movement move over to
(33:57):
the so called advocacy groups those sorts of things, or
tied to Antifa and the radical left violence movement as well.
I'm curious because as you look at the funding, you
see the diversion of funds, and not just the diversion
of funds, but we all know that funding is fungible,
(34:20):
that is, it can be moved around for different purposes.
How much has and I know this is just the
you know, the opening salval, but how much so far
do you know has the Trump administration's push to end
funding to these far left radical groups, at least federal funding.
(34:42):
How much has that impacted this network of advocacy groups
so far?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Well, it's certainly made a difference. And it's the first,
you know, the first time in my lifetime that there's
been any kind of serious pushback on these kinds of things.
But I am confident that it is not a high
(35:10):
percentage of the total funding, partly because you know, so
much of that federal money it doesn't go immediately to
local back groups. It goes first to a state, and
then the state makes grants to cities, and then the
cities make grants to local folks. It's very hard to
track all this money. It's very hard to turn off
(35:31):
those bigots.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Those pickets, of course, have flowed all over the place.
We've seen them not just in this country but in
other countries, and Capital Research Center has reported on that,
and it's difficult to stop. I would imagine the other sources,
the billionaire sources that are funding this movement too. You
(35:56):
mentioned tides before, but how many of the sorows grew
so the other far left socialist communist groups are involved
in this?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Well, you're right, given that we're talking billions of dollars,
there is lots and lots of big philanthropy money, which
means left wing money, by the way, often captured. You know,
let us not forget you have leftists spending dead billionaires money, right,
(36:30):
I promise you Henry Ford would not want any of
his money going to anything like this, or James MacArthur
Andrew Carnegie. But yes, it's it's extremely popular among the
big philanthropy outlets.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Are they picking up where the federal government is leaving
off so to speak? Are they filling those funding gaps?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Well, they definitely are talking among themselves about doing that. Now,
they may or may not be able to fully do it,
but they certainly are. They will do some backfilling, you
can be sure of that.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yes, do you expect given your report and some other
very good reporting we've seen in recent months about the
waste and the abuse of federal funds and donor funds,
do you see Congress getting involved in this obviously the
(37:36):
President has through executive orders, but do you see Congress saying, listen,
this is a growing this has been a growing problem
for a long time. We need to rain this stuff in.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
I think there's some hope for that, but again, it's
you know, this is a huge task to take on.
It is not going to be easy. And every time
you try to do anything, it's going to be you know,
you want people dying in the streets, right, that's going
to be the So it is not at all going
(38:18):
to be an easy an easy task, and Congress has
limited investigative capacities unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Indeed, and Congress of course can't do its basic functions
of putting together a budget or getting to a continuing resolution.
So I don't know how much faith I have in
Congress doing anything about really any issue out there. This
one is going to have to be solved, I think,
(38:49):
like so many others, by individuals who have the benefit
of reading reports like this. Final question for you, Scott,
what happens to the homeless if we continue and the
homelessness issue if we continue to allow these leftist advocacy
(39:09):
groups serve them. As you point out very well in
your report at the disadvantage of these groups.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Well, you are absolutely right to ask that question. And
of course the sad answer is, if we continue with
the horrible policies, then we are going to get the
horrible results and with more and more people. And that's
that's so sad the but God bless you for doing
(39:42):
this kind of reporting. You know, one of the most
poignant things on this area that I've read is Nellie
Bowles has a chapter in her latest book. Of course,
I'm going to forget the name. You know, she is
a left wing lesbian native of San Francisco. Right, this
(40:03):
is not a right winger, but she was a reporter
and in San Francisco. As a reporter, she wanted to
see what happened in the harm reduction program as they
like to call it, which is to say, the curing
(40:23):
addiction by giving people clean needles and the like. And
she wanted to go into one of the tents where
they reduce harm for ventanyl and heroin addicts and the like.
They absolutely would not let her in. Now, mind you,
was all publicly funded, so it seems like as a
San Francisco taxpayer, she has a right to go see
(40:46):
what wonderful things her tax dollars are paying for, but
they would not allow it. So she simply so she
just watched people go in come out. And this is
one of the things she's not nearly as left wing
as she was because thing like this have you know,
persuaded her. My god, the standard left wing narratives are
(41:07):
not helping people. I mean, she called that. I think
her term in the end was like, these are suicide tents.
These are not harm reduction tents. So you know, this
is the horrible, ugly truth. We're going to have more
people die on the streets. We're going to have more
people on the streets.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And just remember that the
same people who are preaching anti racism or as it
really is, discrimination to combat discrimination, are the same people
who are coming up with these tents. So they control
(41:49):
they try to control the language. But I think you're right.
I think a lot of Americans are waking up. They
certainly did in the last election. We will see it's
going to take information from organizations like yours to move
that along. We'll see how long though the American voter
can stay awake. That's the important part here. This is
(42:12):
a fantastic report It is called Infiltrated, the Ideological Capture
of Homelessness Advocacy. It is produced by Capital Research Center
in cooperation with the Discovery Institute. Thanks to my guest today,
Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, you've been listening
(42:32):
to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon
with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom, anxious for
the frame
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Her the fas reason
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