California is facing a surge in homelessness, press reports indicate. The numbers keep rolling in, reports The New York Times (see: “California Today: Homeless Populations Are Surging. Here’s Why,” by Jill Cowan): “In Alameda County, the number of homeless residents jumped 43 percent over the past two years. In Orange County, that number was 42 percent. Kern County volunteers surveying the region’s homeless population found a 50 percent increase over 2018. San Francisco notched a 17 percent increase since 2017.”
Los Angeles is the latest municipality to report a spike in the homeless population, the Los Angeles Times reported (see: “Homelessness jumps 12% in L.A. County and 16% in the city; officials ‘stunned’,” by Benjamin Oreskes and Doug Smith). “The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase,” the paper reported.
Officials say the surge is directly related to the state’s housing affordability crisis. “Our housing crisis is our homeless crisis,” Elise Buik, president and chief executive of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, told The New York Times.
From the Los Angeles Times: “‘If we don’t change the fundamentals of housing affordability, this is going to be a very long road,’ Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said in a briefing with The Times. ‘If we don’t get ahead of affordability, we’re going to be very hard pressed to get ahead of homelessness.'”
But solving the affordability crisis is easier said than done, The New York Times noted. “Although there’s broad acknowledgment — from Gov. Gavin Newsom on down — that part of the solution is millions more homes, legislative fixes that would spur housing construction have proven knotty, to say the least,” the paper reported.
