I don’t buy the housing cost / homelessness causation. There are many poor cities in the US that have both low housing costs and high homelessness. This page mentions Turlock, CA, Stockton, CA, and Springfield, MA as among the top 15 places with the highest homelessness rates; a quick Zillow search indicates they all have a fair bit of cheap housing.
The relationship between homelessness and state-wide housing costs is probably caused by a latent variable: degree of urbanization. Cities are both more expensive and have more homelessness, and states vary widely along the urban/rural dimension.
You also missed a strong countervailing factor which would tend to reduce SF’s homelessness: demographics. SF is has fewer blacks than the nation as a whole, and blacks are more likely to be homeless. SF is also disproportionately Asian, and Asians are much less likely to be homeless.
I think SF’s homelessness problem is caused by a very simple reason: SF is a relatively pleasant place to be a street person. This is partially because of the weather, as you mentioned, but also because the city is quite tolerant of the homeless population and has a lot of services for them.
On the state level, the correlation between urbanization and homelessness is small (R^2 = 0.13) and disappears to zero when you control for housing costs, while the reverse is not true (R^2 of the residual = 0.56). States like New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, Illinois, Florida, Connecticut, Texas, and Pennsylvania are among the most urbanized but have relatively low homelessness rates, while Alaska, Vermont, and Maine have higher homelessness despite being very rural. There’s also, like, an obvious mechanism where expensive housing causes homelessness (poor people can’t afford rent).
The correlation between homelessness and black population in a state is actually slightly negative (R^2 = 0.09). Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are some of the blackest states and have the lowest homelessness rates in the US; Hawaii, Oregon, Alaska and Vermont have some of the highest despite being <5% black.
I also don’t buy that there is a causal relationship between high living costs and high homelessness. As a Bay Area resident, it’s pretty clear that people don’t go from “can’t afford a home” to “homeless” – they go from “can’t afford a home“ to ”resident of Boise”.
Someone else made this point on a post I read recently, but I can’t remember where (Maybe it was Bryan Caplan?) But it extends the observation above as follows:
The Bay Area (and other high-cost areas) are, all else being equal, desirable places to live. People don’t live here primarily because it is too expensive to have a decent quality of life here.
A homeless person, however, gets to live here (i.e., a “nice” place to live) without having to face the high housing costs, because they don’t pay those high housing costs.
That seems like a semi-plausible explanation of why high housing costs would be correlated to high homelessness without causing that homelessness.
It’s not true that people move out of the state when they become homeless. Because their friends and family are here, they often stay. 75% of the homeless people in San Francisco are from here. The housing price matters because poor people here are generally only able to stay because of things like rent control, so once they lose their housing (for example through an Ellis eviction or a fire), it’s very difficult for them to get housing in the city again. So if they want to live in the city where their support network is, then the only option may be to live unsheltered or in their vehicle.
For those that can make it in another city (usually where a relative is willing to take them in), San Francisco is happy to pay for their transportation through the homeward bound program. Buying somebody a ticket out of San Francisco is the cheapest way for the city to make it look like it’s ending homelessness. But the city doesn’t actually track whether or not these people are able to make it wherever they end up.
Maybe when you say people go from can’t afford a home to moving to Boise, you are talking about people who can’t afford to buy a home, not people who can’t afford to rent a home
The problem with your “resident of Boise” theory is that it costs an ungodly amount of money to move, all of which must be paid upfront. Moving out of state is even worse, because it often means transferring jobs. This is a huge barrier for a lot of people, and for many its utterly prohibitive.
Then there’s the fact that homelessness generally feels like a weird transitional phase, and you bear it with as much grace as possible and hope you have kind friends.
My father is a very soft-hearted person, and ever since I was a child he has let people stay with him who are down on their luck for whatever reason. There have been times where we had like 6 or 7 extra people staying out at my dad’s house at once, sharing bedrooms or sleeping on the couches or the living room floor.
I can tell you that most of these people are unable to generate much money at all in spite of their best daily efforts. They simply cannot do it. It’s not that they are mentally ill or grossly incompetent. Many of them demonstrate at least a base level of competency in many different directions. The problem seems to be that they quite simply are not needed. There just ends up being no place for them anywhere. They get outcompeted in the workforce as available positions shrink away, rising above their level of proficiency, becoming increasingly niche and specialized or automated, leaving them behind. Many are older adults without living relatives who are established and willing to help them out, and no one else really cares very much what kind of trauma a relatively uneducated 43-year-old man is suffering either, especially if he has a spotty criminal background.
Compounding these troubles is the fact that these people are poor and look poor. They don’t use correct grammar (not because they’re stupid per se; in fact, this usually comes down to the local culture and the communication styles they’re exposed to). They often don’t meet the minimum requirements listed on most job applications: smart phone with stable internet connection, professional appearance, reliable transportation, home address, etc.
So you see how people end up getting stuck in a downward spiral. Then they fall out onto the streets and get treated like a nuisance for it—because they more or less are a nuisance. A homeless person is a living, breathing allegory of want.
On the other hand, I have an old friend who got out of prison (drug charges) a few years ago and was placed in a 1-br apartment paid for by the city. He has never struggled with housing since then, since he doesn’t have to pay for it. I find that the problem is pretty much invariably financial when it comes right down to it.
On the other hand, I have friends hitting their 30s who very much are in the work force and who are nevertheless struggling to accept the fact that they will probably always be stuck living with no fewer than 9 roommates, come hell or high water.
Tons of people are hanging on by their fingernails or just aren’t able to hack it at all and will probably end up sooner or later on the streets of San Francisco or at my dad’s house or similar.
I don’t buy the housing cost / homelessness causation. There are many poor cities in the US that have both low housing costs and high homelessness. This page mentions Turlock, CA, Stockton, CA, and Springfield, MA as among the top 15 places with the highest homelessness rates; a quick Zillow search indicates they all have a fair bit of cheap housing.
The relationship between homelessness and state-wide housing costs is probably caused by a latent variable: degree of urbanization. Cities are both more expensive and have more homelessness, and states vary widely along the urban/rural dimension.
You also missed a strong countervailing factor which would tend to reduce SF’s homelessness: demographics. SF is has fewer blacks than the nation as a whole, and blacks are more likely to be homeless. SF is also disproportionately Asian, and Asians are much less likely to be homeless.
I think SF’s homelessness problem is caused by a very simple reason: SF is a relatively pleasant place to be a street person. This is partially because of the weather, as you mentioned, but also because the city is quite tolerant of the homeless population and has a lot of services for them.
On the state level, the correlation between urbanization and homelessness is small (R^2 = 0.13) and disappears to zero when you control for housing costs, while the reverse is not true (R^2 of the residual = 0.56). States like New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, Illinois, Florida, Connecticut, Texas, and Pennsylvania are among the most urbanized but have relatively low homelessness rates, while Alaska, Vermont, and Maine have higher homelessness despite being very rural. There’s also, like, an obvious mechanism where expensive housing causes homelessness (poor people can’t afford rent).
The correlation between homelessness and black population in a state is actually slightly negative (R^2 = 0.09). Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are some of the blackest states and have the lowest homelessness rates in the US; Hawaii, Oregon, Alaska and Vermont have some of the highest despite being <5% black.
Data from 538′s Urbanization Index: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-urban-or-rural-is-your-state-and-what-does-that-mean-for-the-2020-election/
I also don’t buy that there is a causal relationship between high living costs and high homelessness. As a Bay Area resident, it’s pretty clear that people don’t go from “can’t afford a home” to “homeless” – they go from “can’t afford a home“ to ”resident of Boise”.
Someone else made this point on a post I read recently, but I can’t remember where (Maybe it was Bryan Caplan?) But it extends the observation above as follows:
The Bay Area (and other high-cost areas) are, all else being equal, desirable places to live. People don’t live here primarily because it is too expensive to have a decent quality of life here.
A homeless person, however, gets to live here (i.e., a “nice” place to live) without having to face the high housing costs, because they don’t pay those high housing costs.
That seems like a semi-plausible explanation of why high housing costs would be correlated to high homelessness without causing that homelessness.
It’s not true that people move out of the state when they become homeless. Because their friends and family are here, they often stay. 75% of the homeless people in San Francisco are from here. The housing price matters because poor people here are generally only able to stay because of things like rent control, so once they lose their housing (for example through an Ellis eviction or a fire), it’s very difficult for them to get housing in the city again. So if they want to live in the city where their support network is, then the only option may be to live unsheltered or in their vehicle.
For those that can make it in another city (usually where a relative is willing to take them in), San Francisco is happy to pay for their transportation through the homeward bound program. Buying somebody a ticket out of San Francisco is the cheapest way for the city to make it look like it’s ending homelessness. But the city doesn’t actually track whether or not these people are able to make it wherever they end up.
Maybe when you say people go from can’t afford a home to moving to Boise, you are talking about people who can’t afford to buy a home, not people who can’t afford to rent a home
The problem with your “resident of Boise” theory is that it costs an ungodly amount of money to move, all of which must be paid upfront. Moving out of state is even worse, because it often means transferring jobs. This is a huge barrier for a lot of people, and for many its utterly prohibitive.
Then there’s the fact that homelessness generally feels like a weird transitional phase, and you bear it with as much grace as possible and hope you have kind friends.
My father is a very soft-hearted person, and ever since I was a child he has let people stay with him who are down on their luck for whatever reason. There have been times where we had like 6 or 7 extra people staying out at my dad’s house at once, sharing bedrooms or sleeping on the couches or the living room floor.
I can tell you that most of these people are unable to generate much money at all in spite of their best daily efforts. They simply cannot do it. It’s not that they are mentally ill or grossly incompetent. Many of them demonstrate at least a base level of competency in many different directions. The problem seems to be that they quite simply are not needed. There just ends up being no place for them anywhere. They get outcompeted in the workforce as available positions shrink away, rising above their level of proficiency, becoming increasingly niche and specialized or automated, leaving them behind. Many are older adults without living relatives who are established and willing to help them out, and no one else really cares very much what kind of trauma a relatively uneducated 43-year-old man is suffering either, especially if he has a spotty criminal background.
Compounding these troubles is the fact that these people are poor and look poor. They don’t use correct grammar (not because they’re stupid per se; in fact, this usually comes down to the local culture and the communication styles they’re exposed to). They often don’t meet the minimum requirements listed on most job applications: smart phone with stable internet connection, professional appearance, reliable transportation, home address, etc.
So you see how people end up getting stuck in a downward spiral. Then they fall out onto the streets and get treated like a nuisance for it—because they more or less are a nuisance. A homeless person is a living, breathing allegory of want.
On the other hand, I have an old friend who got out of prison (drug charges) a few years ago and was placed in a 1-br apartment paid for by the city. He has never struggled with housing since then, since he doesn’t have to pay for it. I find that the problem is pretty much invariably financial when it comes right down to it.
On the other hand, I have friends hitting their 30s who very much are in the work force and who are nevertheless struggling to accept the fact that they will probably always be stuck living with no fewer than 9 roommates, come hell or high water.
Tons of people are hanging on by their fingernails or just aren’t able to hack it at all and will probably end up sooner or later on the streets of San Francisco or at my dad’s house or similar.
It’s hard out here.