Homelessness experts attribute the increase mainly to precipitous declines in earnings during the pandemic among Californians who are already on the brink. They also point to a worsening housing affordability crisis that has been brewing for decades. Use our map to compare California's homeless statistics with those in other states and filter statistics by data source. You can also find the contact information for each state on the map.
If you are homeless, contact Continuum of Care in your local area for assistance. Do you need to update your state's contact information? We know how to end homelessness. Following that ruling, and in line with CDC guidelines that advise greater permissiveness during the pandemic, some say that cities on the West Coast, which lack adequate shelters, have increasingly allowed camps for the homeless. The program housed homeless people in empty motel or hotel rooms, especially people who were 65 years of age or older or who had an underlying medical condition.
As agricultural migrations have occurred and with the expansion of urbanization, empirical research and data analysis will be critical to understanding the main causes of homelessness. While there are programs to help the homeless at the municipal, county, state and federal levels, these programs have not ended homelessness. An estimated 190,207 people are left homeless in Los Angeles County at least one night during the year. Gavin Newsom, state programs to end homelessness, such as Roomkey and Homekey, have created temporary shelters for 50,000 people and helped 8,000 others get more permanent housing.
Most regions report that the presence of homelessness has increased in their communities; respondents say this figure is higher in the Central Valley (69%) and Los Angeles (67%). The first thing to understand is that part of the surplus money is spent on homeless people. A few years ago, a team of economists from Zillow discovered that once cities cross a threshold where the typical resident must spend more than a third of their income on housing, homelessness begins to increase rapidly. The number of homeless San Franciscans has only grown since then to more than 8,000 people, most of whom sleep on the streets, not in shelters.
Newsom housing advisor Jason Elliott acknowledged that the surplus would make it look like homeless people should be in the rearview mirror. Party groups agree that homelessness is a big problem (68% of Democrats, 64% of Republicans, 68% of Independents). But as long as California doesn't address the root cause: the chronic shortage of affordable housing and the continued failure to significantly increase new construction, the state seems doomed to deal with obscene levels of homelessness. The Department of Housing and Urban Development noted that California had about 134,000 homeless people, representing about 24 percent of the country's total homeless population.
Second, experts told me that funding is an important factor, but not the only factor preventing the state from ending homelessness once and for all. The scarcity of affordable housing contributes to the increase in the number of homeless people, as well as to assistance and support programs to help this population maintain a course of action towards improvement.
