That is really ignoring the fact that people move to these cities with dreams and no plans, come from great falls Montana with money for a place to stay for one month, and then are homeless afterwards. Also, collecting statistics on homeless is notoriously noisy; eg in Seattle they did a survey that found most of the homeless lived in Seattle before they were homeless, but when asked where they lived, most put down pioneer square....

There is an issue with SF report (idk about LA one)

1) It was self-reported

2) "Lived in SF" in report meant they were SF residents and this is requires just any bill with city address within 30 days (consider cases like: moved to SF with hopes of better opportunities, out on the streets in couple of months - but sf resident for a short term prior).

I found that fact surprising so I looked at that socketsite but their link to the original source is a dead link.