California Leads Country In New Ranking of States with Most Homeless Street People

A new list on the growing number of homeless living on the streets and in shelters was recently published by 24/7 Wall Street: 48 Major US Cities Struggling to Shelter Growing Homeless Population.

California tops the list of states with the most unsheltered homeless people living on the streets. Since the latest U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development  report to Congress in December 2018, the numbers have surely increased.

One fallacy of the 24/7 Wallstreet report is their claim, “the problem of homelessness is at its root a problem of affordable housing.” While housing is anything but affordable in California, the homeless street population is not made up of families seeking shelter. The majority of the vagrants living on the streets in California, are methamphetamine and heroin drug addicts, not moms and dads down on their luck. It’s just too easy a solution for politicians to claim the problem is affordable housing.

In California, new housing — apartments, condos and single family homes – cost developers ridiculous amounts for permits, fees and taxes. Renovating apartments and condos for affordable housing is anything but affordable. One recent remodeling and repurposing of an old Sacramento hotel into “affordable housing” for homeless cost more than $400,000 per unit. Los Angeles is higher – $600,00 plus.

And San Francisco has no where to build any new housing.

California’s dominant political class has created this mess.

Here is the 24/7 Wall Street list of 48 Major US Cities Struggling to Shelter Growing Homeless Population and numbers using 2018 data. California Globe extracted the California cities for this list below:

43. Oakland, Berkeley, California
> Note: Estimate includes Alameda County
> Homeless population: 5,496 (includes 3,863 unsheltered)
> City population: 417,442

36. Long Beach, California
> Note: Estimate only includes city proper
> Homeless population: 1,873 (includes 1,208 unsheltered)
> City population: 470,489

35. Sacramento, California
> Note: Estimate includes county of Sacramento
> Homeless population: 3,621 (includes 2,052 unsheltered)
> City population: 489,650

34. Fresno, California
> Note: Estimate includes Fresno and Madera counties
> Homeless population: 2,144 (includes 1,681 unsheltered)
> City population: 519,037

13. San Francisco, California
> Homeless population: 6,857 (includes 4,353 unsheltered)
> City population: 864,263

10. San Jose, California
> Note: Estimate includes Santa Clara City & County
> Homeless population: 7,254 (includes 5,448 unsheltered)
> City population: 1,023,031

8. San Diego, California
> Note: Estimate includes San Diego city and county
> Homeless population: 8,576 (includes 4,990 unsheltered)
> City population: 1,390,966

2. Los Angeles, California
> Note: Estimate includes Los Angeles city & county
> Homeless population: 49,955 (includes 37,570 unsheltered)
> City population: 3,949,776

Number one was New York City. But look at the numbers compared with Los Angeles: LA, with a population of 3.9 million, has 37,570 unsheltered. NYC, with a population of 8.5 million, has 3,711 unsheltered.

1. New York City, New York
> Homeless population: 78,676 (includes 3,711 unsheltered)
> City population: 8,560,072