The Root Cause of the Homelessness Crisis

Thirty percent of the American homeless population and 50 percent of its unsheltered population live in California, more than 170,000 people total. Homelessness is primarily a function of the broader housing-unaffordability crisis, which in turn is primarily a function of how difficult local governments have made building new housing in the places that need it the most.

Pundits and politicians routinely claim that the California homelessness crisis is actually a result of people moving from other states for better weather or better public benefits. But new research casts doubt on this theory. Last month, researchers at UC San Francisco released the largest representative survey of homeless people in more than 25 years. It comprises survey data from 3,200 homeless people in California and in-depth interviews with more than 300 of them.