To come later, the state, local, and federal public employee pension and other retirement costs ballooning, among other things, eating into budgets while Social Security and Medicare deficits (and redemption of bonds) eat progressively more into the federal budget.

Good luck finding money for public housing in expensive locations.

why does anyone pay any rent when Cartwright can just orchestra a public debasement guilt trip and her media tools cover it no questions asked?

You people keep falling for this con, goodness

ladies, it’s 2021, you don’t get to claim the weak sex, you want equality, that comes with responsibility

pay your way or move to a place you can, you can live in any number of states for 500 a month, just not in one of the most expensive places to live in

The 2019 census arrived at a total County headcount of about 9,700, a 31.2% increase relative to 2017. Three-quarters were 25 years old and above with 17% between 18-24 and 8% under age 18. About 62% were men, 36% women and 2% transgender. The data on racial composition indicates that 44% were White (including those of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity who identify racially as White), 24% were multi-racial, 20% were Black and 8% were American Indian or Alaskan Native. Ethnically, 43% identified as Hispanic/Latino.

Some 81% of the houseless resided in the County prior to their recent houselessness with 15% having previously lived in other California counties. Only 4% of the houseless resided outside the state before they became houseless. About 86% had resided in the County for one year or more, with 69% resident for at least 5 years, prior to becoming homeless. At the time of the census more than two-thirds had been homeless for at least one year and another 27% for 1-11 months. The houseless are clearly not “nomadic” migrants seeking the most generous social safety net, as libertarian and neoliberal sociopaths suggest.

A lost job (30%), alcohol or drug use (22%), divorce or separation (15%), eviction (14%), fallout with family or friends (12%) and incarceration (11%) were the six most frequently cited events or conditions leading to houselessness. While about 90% indicated they would take permanent affordable housing as soon as they can get it, the most frequently cited obstacles to such housing were rent affordability (66%), a lack of a job or income (56%), the unavailability of such housing (40%) and a lack of money for moving costs (35%). About 70% of the houseless reported receiving assistance of some type with meals (73%), bus passes (36%), community drop-in center (25%) and religious-based services (13%) being the most common. The houseless are, thus, people with low or precarious incomes, who have difficulty finding or holding jobs and who have had marital or domestic problems in their former households.

These are neighbors, friends and community members caught in the tangle of a precarious and inequitable socio-economic system characterized by lopsidedly-distributed income and wealth, by a tiny minority that devours the vast bulk of resources, where more than two-thirds of the population lives paycheck to paycheck (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/number-of-americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-on-decline-despite-pandemic-301134207.html), and where the political stratum is captured by the primary beneficiaries of the social order. That is the objective side of their reality, as it is ours; substance use/abuse, domestic disputes and/or mental health challenges are the subjective side, as it is ours to a lesser or greater extent. As such, the houseless are the early warning system that foreshadows what may come to the exponentially larger mass surviving on the margins of sufficiency among us.

“how are elderly and disabled scoring “low”, if that was the case? On a vulnerability score”

You are prescient. Just wait another 10-20+ years as society ages and more and more elderly (and increasingly disabled) people are in need. I have been stating this for a long time, too, and include casual references to elderly and sometimes disabled when I refer to lower-income or other special-purpose assistive housing. There’s also the potential for abandoned schools in the future to become elderly (and disabled) centers instead (as with maybe one or more malls in larger metro areas) and it’s a shame people in government and activists, too, neglect this so badly, since it’s so obvious even though the real need has yet to materialize, as with the problems with pensions and other public employee retirement costs.

Social Security has never been intended to be a sole income source, and even the most ambitious “leveling” oriented raise-the-floor schemes by liberal Democrats wanting to spend more on the program won’t raise benefits high enough to function as a sole income source in most places in the United States, never mind in particularly expensive locations like the South Bay or the Bay Area. Governments may have to look at developing such lower-income facilities in their respective hinterlands or third-tier downward cities and pay to relocate people. That’s true for the coming elderly and disabled and with the homeless, and others who can’t afford to house themselves in top-tier sites or are prohibited for other reasons (felons, sex offenders, etc.), where a public role is essential since it doesn’t pay or pay enough in the private sector.