Welcome to The Craig Bushon Show, where we cut through the noise and get straight to the truth.
So here’s the latest from Nashville, Tennessee: City leaders want property owners—yes, folks like you who already pay hefty property taxes—to help pay for clearing homeless encampments off their own land. That’s right. If a camp pops up on your private property, and you call for the city to help remove it, they want you to open your wallet again on top of what you already pay for public safety and sanitation. They call it “shared responsibility.” To me, it’s just the government dodging its own responsibility.
Why this matters to every taxpayer
This isn’t just about compassion or urban beautification. It’s about whether local government continues to expand its budgets on the backs of responsible citizens instead of fixing root problems. Think about it: you already pay property taxes for city services like police, trash, and code enforcement. The same city that can’t keep encampments off your land now wants you to pay extra to do their job. Meanwhile, homeless encampments keep growing because the system is broken, with little permanent housing or mental-health intervention. And here’s the reality before they ever ask taxpayers for another cent, it’s time to audit exactly where all the money already collected for this crisis has gone.
They already have your money — they just don’t spend it wisely
There are already plenty of tax dollars in the system to fix homelessness. Between property taxes, hotel taxes, sales taxes, federal HUD grants, state block funds, and nonstop new fees on everything from short-term rentals to parking, government at every level is sitting on millions that could be directed toward lasting solutions. But instead of funding transitional housing, treatment centers, job re-entry, and proven programs, they squander it on bloated administrative overhead, sweetheart consulting deals, and pet projects that have nothing to do with the human suffering on our sidewalks. You need full transparency and rigorous audits of every program that claims to tackle homelessness. Taxpayers deserve to see the books.
And here’s the uncomfortable fact
This crisis is overwhelmingly concentrated in liberal-run cities. California, the bluest state in America, holds over 28% of the entire nation’s homeless population, with more than 187,000 people homeless as of 2025 according to California Senate data. Meanwhile, Nashville itself reported a 4.1% increase—adding 86 people to its homelessness count, for a total of 2,180 individuals in the 2025 Point-in-Time Count—despite hundreds of millions already invested in housing initiatives (Nashville PIT 2025) (yahoo.com, fox17.com). New York City continues to report thousands sleeping on sidewalks and in subways despite pouring millions into shelters. Maybe it’s time for these cities—and Nashville—to open their financial records and show taxpayers exactly where all this money is going.
The humanitarian angle they don’t talk about enough
Simply shuffling homeless folks from one patch of land to the next isn’t solving homelessness. Without addiction treatment, mental-health care, transitional housing, and real accountability, these cleanups just become expensive theater that taxpayers keep funding over and over with no results. Even worse, it often disconnects people from caseworkers and church ministries that were finally reaching them. That’s why, alongside treatment, it’s time to demand audits on every so-called homelessness initiative, so you can weed out waste and make sure the dollars actually go toward helping people get off the streets for good.
And what about small businesses and nonprofits?
Picture this: you’re a small business in East Nashville already scraping by, or a church with a food pantry. Now every time you ask for an encampment removed off your parking lot, you get a bill. Is that the kind of community we want? Or is this just the latest case of local bureaucrats squeezing private citizens to patch over years of policy neglect? Before they dare bill homeowners and small businesses again, they need to open up the ledgers and show you where the millions already earmarked for homelessness have disappeared.
Craig Bushon’s perspective
Listen, I’m all for local communities stepping up. That’s the American way. But let me be very clear, this is not the same as voluntary giving. This is coercion. You pay taxes so your city keeps streets clean and safe. And there is no need for more taxes to fix this. The money is already there it’s just not being spent where it should be. Every dollar ought to go to housing solutions, mental-health services, and getting people off the streets for good not just to cover more short-term cleanups that never address the real problem. And it’s not all about money it’s very bad policies driving this issue. You need leadership with the courage to rethink failed approaches, stand up to interest groups, and finally start solving this crisis. It’s also time to audit every single dollar that’s supposed to be addressing homelessness so taxpayers can see exactly where it’s really going.
Bottom line from this show
Truth. Accountability. The power of your vote. That’s what we stand for. And if Nashville’s leaders keep shifting their problems onto your checkbook, while plenty of tax dollars sit tied up in all the wrong priorities and unexamined budgets, maybe it’s time voters hand them a pink slip and bring in leaders who will open the books, audit these programs, and finally get serious about solving homelessness — not just billing property owners for it.
Stay with us. We’ll keep shining a light on this because it cuts right to the heart of what local government is and isn’t supposed to do.
