But while about 1 in 9 Americans lives in California, roughly 1 in 4 homeless Americans lives here. It’s not surprising that California, the largest state, has the biggest homeless population in the country. Experts say this method likely underestimates the unsheltered, and doesn’t capture the total number of people who fall into homelessness over the course of a year, which could be two or three times higher. Official homelessness statistics mostly come from “one night counts” - a volunteer-led snapshot of the number of people experiencing homelessness one night in January. Here’s what you need to know about California’s homelessness crisis - including possible solutions. In a Christmas Day tweet, Trump repeated his threats of federal intervention if the state fails to fix the problem.
Gavin Newsom and the state’s progressive policies for allowing the country’s “best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings” to be blockaded by people without homes. President Donald Trump has wielded the state’s homelessness woes as a political cudgel, excoriating Gov. State and local officials have pledged billions in recent years to help, but voters remain frustrated by a lack of visible progress. And while the problem is most acute in California’s urban centers, homelessness is now a common fixture in many of the state’s suburbs and rural towns. Nearly 5,000 people live in the half square mile of Los Angeles’ Skid Row.
The United Nations compared the tent encampments of San Francisco to the slums of New Delhi and Mexico City. In a state with vast amounts of wealth, more than 150,000 of its residents sleep in shelters, cars, or on the street. California’s most vexing issue is also its most shameful: the large and rising number of residents who lack a safe place to call home.