I didn't realize this until I saw it this morning, but if you exclude California homelessness has been steadily declining in the US since 2007. It's down by a quarter over the past 15 years:
You'd never know it from media and activist reports, but homelessness has been a big policy success in 49 states. As usual, though, California is the great outlier when it comes to anything housing related.¹ Policy recommendations should always take that into account.
¹And New York City, to a lesser extent.
If I was homeless, I'd choose California to be homeless in, wouldn't you? I wonder how many are from out of state. I was "traveling", as I thought of it, for three years in the '70s.
In California, of course.
"The overwhelming majority of homeless people surveyed were locals, not migrants from far away: 90 percent lost their last housing in California, and 75 percent lost it in the same county where they were experiencing homelessness. Of the 10 percent who came from elsewhere, 30 percent were born in California. Most of the others had familial or employment ties, or had previously lived in the state."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/california-homelessness-housing-crisis/674737/
I read an article recently in the Seattle Times that came to similar conclusions about the homeless population in Western WA. I doubt UC San Francisco would have been interested in our problems up here, but I wouldn't be surprised if others were doing similar research. Up in the NW corner of WA there does seem to be a lot of actual small home building going on to get people into more permanent shelter.
Yes, what percentage of the country is rural vs urban?
Even if all the rural homeless went to the city, it'd only lower the number of homeless from the city to about... 80%
But also, 'last had housing' doesn't mean they're from that urban area.
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What that doesn't get into is what was that housing (someone's couch, a rental, a home purchase, etc) and for how long had they been in California.
I'll second kirwoll's comment that the vast majority of homeless in CA are originally from CA, not bums from other states looking for a sweet spot on the beach. The reason CA and NYC have such intractable homeless populations is that housing prices there just keep rising and more and more people who, for whatever reason, lose their apartments or homes (job loss, illness, domestic abuse, etc.) simply can't afford anything available. Rentals in NYC just hit a new record high and there's no reason to think they'll do anything but continue to rise. And so will the homeless population.
"Originally from California" implies "born in California" but "90 percent lost their last housing in California" means (at least as written) only that percentage of those homeless had some sort of (unspecified) home in California for some (unspecified) time.
Over 40% of Californians were born outside of CA, so there is no way 90% of the homeless were born there. Many moved to CA, had housing, and then things went bad.
I do wonder how much length of residence in a place matters in homelessness risk. I would guess people with longer histories in a place would have larger social networks that could help them recover after job loss. But if homelessness in CA is more related to housing costs, length of residence may matter less (at least for renters).
It’s a problem because of heroin. Addicts can’t hold jobs and can’t afford rent. Sone legitimately crazy people but mostly drugs addicts in NYC.
If I was homeless, I'd choose California to be homeless in, wouldn't you? I wonder how many are from out of state.
Jesus. This again?
Answer: only a tiny percentage are from out of state.
"Answer: only a tiny percentage are from out of state."
So if you can't blame in migration the problem is presumably that government policy in California unlike the rest of the country promotes homelessness.
Per Redfin, the median home price in both San Diego and LA is now over $900k, and in San Francisco it's $1.4M. When homes are that expensive you're going to have a lot of homeless.
There are things *local* governments can do to help this, mainly zoning and development regulations that encourage more housing construction, but those things can only do so much. When a place has a mild climate, beautiful scenery, and beaches, you're going to have a lot of people who just want to live there. Ergo, expensive housing.
But go ahead and blame the government if it makes you feel better.
It never fails - somebody always brings this up.
It's always wrong or blown out of proportion. As the other person points out, only a small fraction of those who are homeless in California came from elsewhere and had no previous ties to California (and maybe they moved to California trying to make it, but just didn't land on their feet). This applies to homelessness everywhere.
I don't know why people think that people who are homeless have the resources to just relocate to somewhere where it is allegedly nice to be homeless. Spoiler: it's not nice to be homeless anywhere, it is in fact highly traumatic.
The homeless generally migrate to the warmer states. Why spend the winter in Wyoming....
Please see every single reply to the above comment. This is not a thing.
No.
Interesting Stanford study on the subject:
https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/homelessness-california-causes-and-policy-considerations#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20Los%20Angeles,had%20a%20substance%20use%20disorder.
This is one way of looking at homelessness, sure. The share of the population that is homeless has declined. The raw numbers have declined, too. But it isn't declining "everywhere" - these are national numbers. On top of that, one has to remember population growth, too... While the raw number has decreased by 10% nationally since 2007, it's been very uneven.
I should also point out that all of that decrease is driven by decreases in homelessness from 2007 to 2016. In 2017, homelessness started to tick upwards again and hasn't stopped.
To be a little less lazy, it would be better to say that homelessness as a share of the population is decreasing everywhere that housing costs aren't outpacing earnings. Homelessness is a housing problem.
I posted this previously, but here is the raw HUD data on every Continuum of Care in the country for the annual point in time count (yes, there are methodology concerns with this starting with it being once a year, but when you have 16 years of data it has some value): https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/hdx/pit-hic/. I'm wondering if this is Kevin's source as well, since data starts in 2007...
18 states (and Guam) saw increases in the number of people homeless from 2007 to 2022, in descending order of percent change:
Vermont
South Dakota
Delaware
Maine
(Guam)
Alaska
Montana
Louisiana
California
Wyoming
New York
Utah
Rhode Island
Idaho
Kansas
Minnesota
Washington
Massachusetts
Oregon
Right. Kevin's headline seemed mathematically suspect to my eyes, but I didn't have time to formulate an objection.
The best explanation I heard about California, other than the obvious statistical one people have already pointed out, is that the recent drive to gentrify former areas which were lower middle class and worse (think East LA and Highland Park, also Koreatown and the Arts District) results pretty much directly in homelessness.
Its sort of take your pick, an area which you would call a "slum" or homelessness.
The point is that once an area starts to gentrify, which properties do developers pick to tear down and rebuild? Answer: the worst properties. What result? For each new place there is one less super below market property. Follow on result: eliminate more super below market properties than can be replaced by new low income housing and there you go.
When this is done at scale its not surprising that homelessness rises.
Homelessness is in part an affordability problem, in part a mental-health problem, in part a substance-abuse problem. I strongly favor housing-first initiatives — once people have a place where they can be found, the root-cause of their particular situation can be addressed by the appropriate agencies and services. I also strongly favor living-wage legislation, to address the affordability problem. Once employers are paying fairly, I favor following up with a GBI; along with a more steeply progressive income tax.
Housing first is best, yes! It's easier to treat anything else if you first resolve someone's housing crisis.
Homelessness is also mostly an affordability problem.
Yep. Lots of affluent people suffer significant mental health problems, and many also abuse addictive substances. But the overwhelming majority manage to stay housed.
Of course, but given how difficult it is in this country to get living-wage laws passed, making the homeless affluent is hardly a solution for homelessness.
The % of California's population that is homeless will go up if the state has a net outmigration.
Just saying.
According to HUD, the "raw data" of homeless in the US, by state, from 2007 - 2022:
CA +32,535 / +23.4%
NY +11,577 / +18.5%
LA +1,879 / +34.2%
WA +1,832 / +7.8%
ME +1,773 / +67.2%
Was chuckling till I saw you added NYC. It’s hideous here. No idea while, if I were homeless last place I’d go is NYC. Too damn cold and too damn hot. Sometimes anyway.
if I were homeless last place I’d go is NYC.
You wouldn't need to "go there." The vast majority of homeless New Yorkers are from NY, as is the case with most locations and homelessness .
And then we get the LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-23/from-a-one-way-flight-to-sleeping-in-a-parking-lot-diary-of-a-california-dream-gone-sour?utm_id=105684&sfmc_id=532076