The massing of the homeless in these leftist enclaves is intentional on behalf of the leftist politicians. They are drawn by the freebies like healthcare and drugs along with free needles. The homeless are now a constituency to these self serving socialist fools who endanger their remaining sane citizenry and neuter their police and public health services to make their streets into tent jungles for votes.

Real mental healthcare reform including a modern more reasoned form of Institutionalization would have the effect of not eliminating the homeless and mass shooters but greatly reducing their number. Because of this the socialists that run the democrat party will not allow it even though it is the obvious answer to multiple problems. Shut the borders also would staunch the flow of drugs and shrink this population so....the socialists who need dependent groups for vote harvesting will not allow it. Sadly they are playing with fire as these sub human conditions threaten to ignite a new plague if not cleaned up. That would be a sad way to end the homeless problem but the corrupt democrat party would find some way to blame Donald Trump for that as well!

It's a NARCOTICS problem, a heroin and meth problem, created by the elected officials in those cities offering free needles and free services and refusing to enforce city ordinances. They are magnets for users and criminals. Take a look at the documentary SEATTLE IS DYING.

I suppose the question is “Better” or “Worse” than what? ... than when?

I think there is a marked rise in density but that is brought about by the areas that are experiencing its’ Own Policies ... if you make it “easy” to be “homeless” ... if you continually offer “benefits” to the homeless ... you’re going to have more of it.

Rewarding Unwanted Behavior Guarantees MORE of the Same ...

California has created a “Perfect Storm” in that they are “Uber Liberal” ... have extreme shortages in “affordable” housing and ...have almost PERFECT Weather for a homeless person.

I'd say homelessness is on the decline, however, some of the major cities have seen an increase in such and Los Angeles comes to mind. This could be because in the state of California (especially the big cities, LA/SF/Oakland etc) you probably need to make at least $70,000 or so a year to afford rent and other expenses, it's a costly state to live in and I suspect quite a few people who live in that state do not make that kind of money per year.

Homelessness overall is going down, yes, but in the places where it does exist, it's getting worse. States and Cities that dump millions and thousands of dollars into welfare act as magnets for these sorts of vagrants.

The biggest issue with the homeless is a combination of drugs, mental issues, and criminality. Many of these people are unemployable because they are homeless, have committed some kind of crime, or abuse a substance. The mentally ill need to be shuttled away into very transparent and secure mental wards, and drugs need to be legalized.

We live in a culture that assumes things are worse then they really are. Homelessness is down according to the chart, but it’s more in-your-face thanks to mental illness, drugs and our obsession with oppression. Similarly, overall crime: violence, sexual assault, and murder have all been declining for years, but you’d never know that from watching the news.

Homelessness is not an epidemic. It is a local problem that highlights the failure of local governments - [endhomelessness.org]

Utah learned that housing alone is not enough. Here's Atlanta's take -
[wbur.org]

I watched a long interview documentary. Every single homeless person interviewed attributed their homelessness to drugs. Without fail. Start there.

Interesting. I don’t have a ready answer, but it would appear that the unsheltered homeless are becoming more visible, but not (overall) more numerous. Media focus, including social media, is likely a contributing factor to that increased visibility. But are the unsheltered homeless congregating more, whereas they were previously more dispersed? If so, are they really attracted to specific political environments? These questions might not be answerable. But I can say, at least anecdotally, that when Colorado and Oregon first legalized marijuana there was a distinct spike in the homeless population in both places. So there is a likelihood that the homeless do in fact pay attention to the political climate, and plan their migrations accordingly.

California was losing population due to the way it is being run. So, get illegals in and draw as many homeless in as possible and you maintain or increase your population and number of representatives in Congress. Pretty intelligent move. Reduce the number of people who vote yet increase your population.

I have been personally investigating the homeless system for years, with the lense of a physicist.
www.jaymaron.com/street.html

Far more is spent on administrators and staff than on the homeless.
As 10thGeneration said, politicians love to create captive constituencies. If you solve the homeless
problem, you next have to solve an unnecessary administrators problem.

The money is spent inefficiently. If the money were spent efficiently then the homeless problem
could be solved instantly.

City land costs 100000/meter^2 and rural land costs 4 $/meter^2. It costs far more to support people
in a city than in a rural area. Ship them out of the cities.

Polite people cost far less to support than impolite people. Much of the money is spent on
measures to handle impolite people. Separate the two crowds. The polite people would very much
like to get away from the impolite people.

There is no mechanism for discussion and improvement of the system. The homeless are never asked
for their opinion and administrators tend to have a sense of power entitlement. If you disagree with them
they can throw you out.
Psychiatric meds are used as a tool of control. Meds are put upon you by force, with no due process,
and with an insufficient number of doctor-patient sessions. In the shelter you are under continuous surveillance
and it is used against you with negative prejudice.

Many people smoke, and the system is hostile to smokers. They're not going to stop smoking. The smartest thing
politicians could do is to remove the tax on cigarettes.

The world is full of obstructive regulations. California is incapable of building anything. Don't give them money.
[federalobserver.com]
PoliticalAthiest has a great post about this in this thread.

In the current political climate, cities are engines for sucking wealth out of
the rural areas. Revitalize the rural areas by shuMany are homeless because
it's damn hard to make enough money in a city, and there are few economic
opportunities in rural areas. The left vs. right war is partially a city
vs. rural war.

The Obamaphone program is a rare success. The homeless need those phones and they spend all day
on them surfing the web. If only there had also been an Obamaphone protector program as well. Many have
dropped their phones and it's heartbreaking watching them use phones with broken screens.

AOC pulled a stunt by crying over a detension center that didn't exist. Finding something to cry about isn't
hard. Just look at any shelter in AOC's district.

I have attached a in inforgraphic for food, showing calories/$ and protein/$. If you look at what's being served in
the shelters you see that they are oblivious to this.

The heroes are the church shelters and the volunteers that operate them.

In Seattle it has a lot to do with the tolerance of crime and drug abuse...the city provides safe injection sites and leniency on crimes...they have toyed with idea of providing FREE heroin to addicts in an effort to reduce violate crimes (robbery/muggings) in the downtown area where people go to watch sporting events/concerts etc. Then of course someone has to pay so taxes go through the roof and the cost of living is driven too high and the people that can't afford to leave end up in a tent in DT Seattle and those that can afford to end up leaving...The city council has ruined the city....this pretty much depicts the entire left coast from British Columbia Canada all the way to Mexico. Happily I defected 4 years ago....BEST. DECISION.EVER.

The homeless epidemic is absolutely getting worse and regulators are NOT helping to make housing any cheaper! People argue that regulations are necessary to ensure safe clean housing but the reality is the regulations are far beyond what is necessary and into the realm of being completely burdensome.

The reason why no low income housing is being built is because of garbage government policy. Places are not being zoned for low income housing. Government is not making deals with construction and real estate companies for tax cuts to subsidize low income housing. Government makes it too easy for tenants to sue landlords for exorbitant amounts of money over minor code violations making it difficult for may landlords to do business at all.

Not only this, but I intimately know some people who are in the real estate industry. They own an apartment building. It has two storage rooms which could be converted into living spaces quite easily if the government were not in the way. The plans are done. The plans are sound. The remodeled units would be safe. They are real estate professionals they know what they are doing. But they have to jump from department to department and through hoop after hoop just to get the permitting to remodel two units in a building they already own. This is YEARS of regulatory burden just to remodel two rooms. This is an established professional company which is well equipped to handle all this crap, and they are STILL having issues. Just imagine how much of a nightmare that is for an entrepreneur, or a developer trying to build new construction from the ground up?

It's this absurdity which is driving up housing costs!

This is coming from a Californian who knows people in the Bay Area real estate market. Of course this is one aspect of it, and there are many other aspects to consider, but this is one problem a lot of left leaning people I know always fail to address.

First, it's important to understand what the media is generally not highlighting - homelessness is largely a drug addiction problem (not completely, but largely). Have you seen the "Seattle is Dying" documentary? It's extremely well documented and directed.

Next, most of the homelessness is in large Democrat run cities. As you see in that youtube video, that's because the Democrats have all sorts of policies and freebies that encourage a migration of the homeless and addicts into their cities, thus away from less homeless/addict friendly environments/cities.

Then, I think that video (or others I've seen) also shows that the excessive drug abuse of many/most of the homeless leads to premature death. So the number is dropping some by mortal attrition.

And finally, I've also seen (in that video or another) that if the homeless addicts are going to survive, it will be because the city drops their liberal policies and adopts a tough-love policy. That has proven highly successful with the Rhode Island Dept. of Correction (around 52 minutes into the video). They take them off the streets and get them on an anti-narcotic med. and keep them in a program while detained and afterward. The former homeless/addicts praise the police and everyone involved in that system for "saving their life".

There's much more that can be said, but I'll leave it there. Watch the video - you'll be glad you did.

Legal weed.

As a homeless guy periodically, the problem is governments failure to recognize homelessness as a way of life. Furthermore violence and threats from citizens, usually residents and business owners, harass and and lie to police about homeless, and since they are the scorn of society it’s a free pass rewarded by the non homeless.
The idea that homelessness, is the problem is incompetent.

It is an industry and yes, it is growing. The UN has invested in the industry via its migration rights agenda. People are encouraged to adopt a mobile lifestyle. Life in pods.

How are the homeless statistics gathered? Is the apparent increase in homeless because of undocumented aliens with nowhere to go? And how are undocumented aliens even counted if we have no idea of their numbers? What doe sheltered status mean, the n umber registered at "homeless shelters"? Seems a lot more questions than answers.

My understanding, broadly speaking, is in line with the data in the OP; however, anecdotally, as someone who lives and works in downtown San Antonio, I have noticed an increase in the homeless population. I assume the up-tick in the local homeless population is a consequence of the direction the local political winds have been blowing.

It might be useful to contrast this graph with one that illustrates the change in the number of homeless in California specifically. Many have observed an increase in the number of people living on the streets of LA and SF, that's for sure, and most are probably aware of SF's Human Feces Map. I understand Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR have pretty large and growing homeless populations as well.

This is likely due to the mild climates of these cities and their Establishments' toleration of all sorts of bad behavior by street people.

What has changed is population. 7.7+ billion predicted to be 9 billion by 2030. This puts some added stress on resources. And on wealth. And on equity. We could accommodate the growth, even in light of technology reducing labour value, but there is that pesky problem of wealth inequality. And it is a thorny one that admits no ready solution. Spontaneous generosity - and we have seen some of that - might do the trick but the challenge is not only to a sharing culture but to power. The wealthy rule.

Remember what Rahm Emanual said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” The media reports a problem, but because there is very little news, it is reported with emotional terms to divide people again. It seems like an epidemic, but I do not live in these places so I only know what the media report. Kind of like the vaping crisis. All of a sudden people are dying across the nation, and without any deep investigation and research vaping is getting banned with such emotion by politicians working the crisis podium.

Is the media making it appear that homelessness is spreading more or is it making it appear that in certain large cities the solutions are unsuccessful? When you put into place a solution at the government level you have generally obtained some research and some expert testimony. The testimony is provided in "best practices" and "benchmarks" language. The research claims to be empirically valid. The meaning for empirically valid is that the controls over the variables were in place. With human problems there is no way at present to control all the variables and researchers even fight over the definitions to use in their studies. This means that the research is not empirically valid. It is empirically informed, but not validated through empiricism because we are far from having controls on all human dynamics in any decision process. It would appear that the very concept of mental illness needs to be defined back to what it was originally as the new definitions have not benefited the work at all. The old definition of mental illness was secondary so it was used a great deal. When it was used it was used to say that there was a degree of being out of touch with objective reality. As objective reality is not believed in as a criteria to use for this any longer, the definition has changed to mean that a level of functionality is under-developed. So we do not speak of being out of touch of reality as much as we speak of dysfunctional. But, dysfunctional does not explain very much. When you study cognitive processes and structures you realize that the mind works somewhat like a switchboard. It has a panel for basic information. It has a panel for reference points for that information and which allow new information, if properly developed, to be integrated. It has a panel for identifying the limits of any information or data. When a child grows through early development, attachment affects the limbic (emotional effector) system in the brain and this affects anxiety. Anxiety affects memory sustaining and this causes the first three panels of the cognitive structure (already described above) to be less accurate in processing information and experience. The cognitive analysis moves forward showing that all proto-deduction and inductions have a panel to create and determine what is sufficient "information" to allow the other three panels to move forward. Trauma and stressors can and do distort this fourth panel in the cognitive processing. Since a person moves from a single, concrete point of knowledge for basic things like how to climb out of the crib to more abstract thinking of how gravity works and what to do to prevent falling and being hurt---I say, because of this, the cognitive concept has expanded to include a simple model that implies the thought process starts at a single point and expands like an inverted cone so that at the upper end of the inverted cone thoughts that are not direct representation of the initial point of knowledge are developed. This is abstract thinking. The child has moved from a single concrete point to cogitation that sees parallels and reflections and allows for morphing of statements and words. In addition, the cognitive theory allows for a brain map as examined in La Jolla where activity in the brain for regions of the brain was noted for certain mental tasks. This allowed the brain regions to be mapped per ability. It is not perfect but it is very correlative showing activity in the brain with specific tasks. When the cognitive processes of base information, reference points, limits of any particular experience or data and sufficiency have been answered in line with the brain activity of the final dynamic for the cognitive model (as a stand-alone model) becomes clear. That final cognitive aspect, once we have accounted for the activity in region of the brain and cognitive processes-- (that can be hurt by trauma and stress) is the algorithm. Algorithms are the final heuristic to understand how the human mind works. The algorithm is not enough to explain how humans cogitate and the other parts of the model are necessary, but it is also important to understand how algorithms are accurate or inaccurate. With the homeless we see algorithms that are distressed easily and are missing key data to make healthy decisions. With the homeless we also see trauma and stress effects on the nervous system affecting verbal reasoning, memory, identification of emotional and physical objects, disorganization of that part of the brain used for juggling multiple responsibilities at one time, grasping and valuing filtering of information, and other areas of the brain. Solutions that address this must be able to outline and diagram the cognitive processes and structures and work on them consistently with the homeless. Many homeless appear chronically mentally distorted, but few therapists know how to diagram the parts of the cognitive structure, so they are attempting to address something that they do not understand. When anxiety is increased due to attachment being damaged by a parent or caregiver or significant other in the environment then the person who has developed a brain that is impacted by all these intensities of neurotransmitters and other people's unhealthy personal meanings for life cannot merely change their thinking. Programs that do address the problems this way, will help, but their help will be minimal. The entire structure needs to be explained --- I know a lot of people don't like that, but it won't change the fact that it needs to be explained. The whole structure needs to be explained and then small steps taken to improve the: 1) basic data and knowledge, clarifying its meaning; 2) reference points for the data and experiences; 3) limits of specific data so that the mind (which is always hypothesizing/fantasizing/and/or dreaming) does not hypothesize inaccurately; 4) criteria for what is sufficient knowledge to draw a conclusion accurately; 5) awareness of the brain's structural function; and 6) algorithms and the ability to evaluate whether they are accurate or not. If a person is using medications or drugs as an addict then all of this will need to be covered in an integrative way into their drug treatment. Programs to address this are under-developed because no-one actually reads the research to place its findings into a universal model. That leaves each component separate and integrative knowledge of the cognitive structures and processes under-developed. For those of you who have an identity build on component analysis you will be tempted to filter out what I have just said because it does not match your identity. There is nothing wrong with that. That is just the normal process of filtering things and and out, but it can be fine tuned by examining one's own algorithms for drawing accurate conclusions. Homelessness is a secondary problem to the way people process information or think. Some of that can be addressed and some of it, due to people having their own desires, cannot be addressed without the person having an algorithm and conditioning and life narrative that encourages personal growth. Let me know what you think. Can you see that homelessness is a secondary experience contingent upon cognitive, conditioning, motivation (will), and life narrative processes?