More thoughts on GAO Recommendations

Yesterday I pointed to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on improving the efficiency of the government by eliminating duplicative, wasteful, or fragmented programs.  Some of the programs they looked at involved homelessness people and some involved transportation, education, etc.

Today, Ezra Klein printed a response on this topic:

Ezra, I appreciate the posts about program duplication. I work at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, and we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to eliminate duplication and redundancy. As you say, there are a lot of good reasons to have multiple programs. Most homeless people need a housing subsidy. Some homeless people have a mental illness. Some homeless people are kids who need to go to school. Should all of these needs be met with one program? At which department? Do you want HUD to operate an education program? Or should you just make the programs that typically provide these services to people who are not homeless do a better job of serving homeless people? These are all questions we grapple with, and I think we do a good job of identifying the best policy solutions....

This sort of echoes my thoughts as I've been mulling this.  Much of the funding given to communities to deal with homelessness, for Community Development Block Grant program, etc. have flexibility so that communities can tailor the services and programs to fit their needs.  Milwaukee's needs are not going to be the same as La Crosse's.  La Crosse might want to spend some CDBG funding on, for instance, transportation for the elderly and persons with disabilities to medical appointments & such, while Milwaukee might want to spend more CDBG programming on youth & employment programs.

Does this mean that LaCrosse should seeking funding only through the Department of Transportation, or that Milwaukee should be seeking funding only through the Department of Labor?  What if a grant seeker wants to operate an eviction prevention program that would provide funding for either rent (in case of lost employment, to give tenant time to find another job), or energy assistance (to help with weatherization or energy payments).  Does this mean that the grantseeker has to go to the Department of Energy to find funding for energy assistance in a separate grant application?

Sometimes some overlapping and fragmentation isn't such a bad thing.