Homelessness in California

[minny65]

I have lived in CA for over 30 years and love it, there is no state that has the diversity both geographically and demographically.  Like every state CA has its share of issues, with the climate that no other state has brings an extreme high population and combine that with the high cost of living and you have a perfect storm for a high homelessness issue.  In the area that I live, they have done an amazing job of working with the homelessness issue, they have a great rehabilitation program that provides temporary housing with the commitment to transition back to a working state. 

Many create the picture that all of CA is a slum, which is kind of like CA being stereotyped as every inch is Hollywood Blvd/Venice Beach, there are areas that certainly need to be rehabbed, but the vast majority of CA is an amazing place to live. Then again, we already have a population issue, so maybe that is a good picture for everyone to have, as opposed to the annual Rose Bowl parade under 75 degree skies in January which brings another flock of winter birds our way!  

How about we start a thread on every other state and the issues there 

Good point about comparing States.  I would also want to compare regions.  I'm a number cruncher and I just pulled data from different sites, so this is not 100% accurate.

The Pacific region leads the country in homelessness with California population coming in at a rate of .44% of their population.  Then Oregon's rate is .42% followed by Washington State at .32%.
Obviously, weather plays a huge factor.  Sadly, California has about 10,300 Homeless Veterans and Oregon & Washington have about 1,500 each State.  I just wish we did a much better job as a nation to take the best care of our veterans.  
Florida has about 2,300 homeless veterans followed by Texas with 1,800.  Obviously our veterans know good weather (really bad snark).

Back to the topic:
In the Northeast I was surprised by some of the numbers:
Vermont had the highest % of population homeless at .42% (who knew and why?)
New York was next at .38% (another sidebar, just went to a concert at Madison Square Garden and they wanted $21 dollars for a 12oz draft beer - wtf)
Maine is another ??? at .32%

Southeast is led by Louisiana at .16, Tennessee at .15 and Florida at only .11%
Florida seems to be doing a good job of keeping folks in homes or off the street especially when you consider their climate.  

Southwest is led by Arizona at .18 and then New Mexico at .12.  Texas like Florida has a low % rate of only .08%.

Midwest is led by non-other than Minnesota and South Dakota at around .15%

The national average comes in at around .17% of our total population that is homeless.  

Just some numbers for "food" for thought - good pun I must say

[medaille]

I’d be curious to know what percentage of our homeless are “helpable”, meaning that if you put them into a program designed to get them back as a functioning member of society that they would have the desire to make that transition, to differentiate them from those that either prefer to be homeless, are addicted to drugs that make the pathway impossible, or have mental health disorders that they can’t or don’t want to treat.

Obviously, I know that you can "help" anyone, which is why I defined how I used that word and put it in quotes.

[badgervike]

Back to the topic:
In the Northeast I was surprised by some of the numbers:
Vermont had the highest % of population homeless at .42% (who knew and why?)
New York was next at .38% (another sidebar, just went to a concert at Madison Square Garden and they wanted $21 dollars for a 12oz draft beer - wtf)
Maine is another ??? at .32%

I read somewhere that Vermont has a regionally high homeless population due to availability of homeless shelters vs the small population (less than 650,000 in the State).  I'm guessing Maine falls in that same category (that .42% is approx 2700 people)

California's homeless population is against a signficantly higher population and heavily concentrated in the Urban areas...so it accentuates the problem.

[JimmyinSD]

Good point about comparing States.  I would also want to compare regions.  I'm a number cruncher and I just pulled data from different sites, so this is not 100% accurate.

The Pacific region leads the country in homelessness with California population coming in at a rate of .44% of their population.  Then Oregon's rate is .42% followed by Washington State at .32%.
Obviously, weather plays a huge factor.  Sadly, California has about 10,300 Homeless Veterans and Oregon & Washington have about 1,500 each State.  I just wish we did a much better job as a nation to take the best care of our veterans.  
Florida has about 2,300 homeless veterans followed by Texas with 1,800.  Obviously our veterans know good weather (really bad snark).

Back to the topic:
In the Northeast I was surprised by some of the numbers:
Vermont had the highest % of population homeless at .42% (who knew and why?)
New York was next at .38% (another sidebar, just went to a concert at Madison Square Garden and they wanted $21 dollars for a 12oz draft beer - wtf)
Maine is another ??? at .32%

Southeast is led by Louisiana at .16, Tennessee at .15 and Florida at only .11%
Florida seems to be doing a good job of keeping folks in homes or off the street especially when you consider their climate.  

Southwest is led by Arizona at .18 and then New Mexico at .12.  Texas like Florida has a low % rate of only .08%.

Midwest is led by non-other than Minnesota and South Dakota at around .15%

The national average comes in at around .17% of our total population that is homeless.  

Just some numbers for "food" for thought - good pun I must say

I wonder what % of "homeless" are truly living on the streets, vs just not having a place ( owned or rented ) to call their own. I had an uncle that was basically homeless for much of the 80s and 90s, he never likely slept under an overpass or in a park, he would just bounce from family members house to house, or the VA clinics, or what ever really misguided woman with no self esteem would let him shack up with her, but never really what you would classify by todays discussion as "homeless".

[minny65]

I read somewhere that Vermont has a regionally high homeless population due to availability of homeless shelters vs the small population (less than 650,000 in the State).  I'm guessing Maine falls in that same category (that .42% is approx 2700 people)

California's homeless population is against a signficantly higher population and heavily concentrated in the Urban areas...so it accentuates the problem.

Makes sense

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I’d be curious to know what percentage of our homeless are “helpable”, meaning that if you put them into a program designed to get them back as a functioning member of society that they would have the desire to make that transition, to differentiate them from those that either prefer to be homeless, are addicted to drugs that make the pathway impossible, or have mental health disorders that they can’t or don’t want to treat.

Obviously, I know that you can "help" anyone, which is why I defined how I used that word and put it in quotes.

The data I used has a category called "chronically homeless" so maybe we can assume most of those don't want much, if any, help.  Nationwide we have about 578,000 homeless people.  Of which, 127,000 are categorized as "Chronically homeless" or about 22% of all homeless folks.  That leaves 78% that are not chronically homeless.  

Of the 578,000 about 33,000 are veterans so around 5.7% of the total homeless are our veterans.  Do not know what % of veterans are chronic.

Just dug a little deeper.  The data I used is from Dec 2022-FYI

Here is there definition of Chronic:

Chronically Homeless Individual refers to an individual with a disability who has been continuously homeless for one year or more or has experienced at least four episodes of homelessness in the last three years where the combined length of time homeless on those occasions is at least 12 months. 

Chronically Homeless People in Families refers to people in families with children in which the head of household has a disability and has either been continuously homeless for one year or more or has experienced at least four episodes of homelessness in the last three years where the combined length of time homeless on those occasions is at least 12 months.

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Digging a little deeper most of the information (not all so numbers are not precise) is from 2022 Annual Homeless Report to Congress for the U.S. Department of 
Housing and Urban Development.

Some additional information for the rabbit hole folks, like me

Key Findings

On a single night in 2022, roughly 582,500 people
were experiencing homelessness in the United
States. Six in ten (60%) were staying in sheltered
locations—emergency shelters, safe havens, or
transitional housing programs—and four in ten (40%)
were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in
abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for
human habitation.

There continues to be an overrepresentation of
people who identify as Black, African American,
or African, as well as indigenous people (including
Native Americans and Pacific Islanders) among the
population experiencing homelessness compared
to the U.S. population. People who identify as Black
made up just 12 percent of the total U.S. population
but comprised 37 percent of all people experiencing
homelessness and 50 percent of people experiencing
homelessness as members of families with children.

Homelessness slightly increased nationwide.

Between 2020 and 2022, the overall number of people
experiencing homelessness increased by less than
one percent (1,996 people). This increase reflects
a three percent increase in people experiencing
unsheltered homelessness, which was offset by a
two percent decline in people staying in sheltered
locations. However, between 2021 and 2022, sheltered
homelessness increased by seven percent, or 22,504
people. A possible cause for the increase in sheltered
homelessness is the easing of pandemic-related
restrictions some emergency shelter providers had in
place during the 2021 PIT count. These restrictions
included reducing shelter capacity to allow for more
space between people sleeping in congregate settings
to reduce their risk of exposure. Additionally, the
national inventory of shelter beds increased between
2021 and 2022, likely reflecting an infusion of
pandemic-related funding that supported additional
non-congregate shelter beds.

The number of veterans experiencing homelessness
declined by 11 percent (4,123 fewer people) between
2020 and 2022. In 2022, 40,238 fewer veterans were
experiencing homelessness than in 2009, when these
data were first reported, a drop of nearly 55 percent.

Six of every 10 people experiencing unsheltered
homelessness did so in an urban area (60%), with
more than half of all unsheltered people counted
in the Continuums of Care (CoCs) that encompass
the nation’s 50 largest cities (54%).

The remaining four of every ten people who experienced unsheltered
homelessness were almost evenly split between largely
suburban areas (21%) and largely rural areas (19%).

More than two thirds of all people experiencing
homelessness (72%) did so in households without
children present.

The number of individuals experiencing sheltered homelessness between 2021
and 2022 increased by 5 percent (10,148 people).
This was the second largest year-to-year increase
in sheltered homelessness among individuals since
reporting began in 2007.

About three in every ten people experiencing
homelessness (28%) did so as part of a family with
children. The overall number of people in families with
children who were experiencing homelessness on a
single night in 2022 decreased by about 10,500 people
since 2020, following a general trend of year-to-year
declines over most of the previous several years.

On a single night in 2022, more than 30,000 people
under the age of 25 experienced homelessness on
their own as “unaccompanied youth.” Slightly more
than half of these youth (57%) were in sheltered
locations. Most (91%) were between the ages of 18
and 24. Four percent of the unaccompanied youth
population reports identifying as transgender, not
singularly female or male, or gender questioning,
compared with one percent of all individuals
experiencing homeless.

Nearly one-third (30%) of all individuals experiencing
homelessness in 2022 had chronic patterns of
homelessness. While there has been a steady rise
in the number of individuals experiencing chronic
homelessness in both sheltered and unsheltered
locations since 2016, sheltered homelessness among
individuals with chronic patterns of homelessness
doubled between 2016 and 2022. 

The national inventory of beds for people currently or
formerly experiencing homelessness increased by 11
percent between 2020 and 2022. The largest increases
in year-round inventory in any inventory type occurred
in emergency shelters (28,548 more beds), rapid
re-housing (27,166 more beds), and other permanent
housing (40,221 more beds).

Within emergency shelter programs, the largest increase in inventory was for
voucher-based beds which are often single-occupancy
rooms in hotels or motels (as opposed to congregate
facility-based beds), which increased by 243 percent
between 2020 and 2022. This increase reflects a
response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which many
communities made investments in non-congregate
forms of shelter.