[not_real_acct]

"Thanks in large part to spiraling urban rents, the homeless population increased by 5.3% from 2010 to 2018, in a state that already has almost half of the nation’s homeless. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, the crisis is especially acute, with destitute people and pitiful tent encampments crowding the sidewalks."

This is ridiculous. California is filled with homeless people because:

1) there's a nationwide opioid crisis

2) if you're going to be homeless, might as well move to where the weather is nice

In a recent survey in Los Angeles, somewhere around 90% of the homeless reported a substance abuse problem.

This is impacting Seattle and Portland too; it's a lot easier to be homeless in Portland than Phoenix.

[at-fates-hands]

While I agree the opioid crisis hasn't helped much, the main problem before the crisis was the gentrification of many of the urban areas in California. Skyrocketing rent and an influx of dot com companies pushed a lot of people in these communities right back onto the street.

[gridlockd]

> This is ridiculous.

Perhaps, but why let a perfectly useful argument for cheaper housing go to waste, just because it's nonsense?

[NotSammyHagar]

I doubt opioids are 90% of the problem. Every day I read about a senior citizen who is living in their car, has some retirement money, and usually not a drug problem but they lost their housing because it's too expensive.

This is the situation in Seattle. There are tons of people with drug addictions, but there are also clearly lots of people economically pushed onto the street.

So we still need more cheaper housing.