You can get out of California for $100 or less by train if you buy your tickets in advance for a mid-week date. That's how I left and got back into housing (I'm the author of the piece under discussion).
That can get you to parts of Oregon, Washington or Reno, Nevada. You might also be able to get to Arizona, but I didn't research that because I had no desire to go to Arizona while homeless in California and looking for a path out, so I can't say for sure.
But giving that bit of information sounds like your point is irrelevant and I don't think that's the case.
When I was in San Diego County, I was having trouble figuring out how to get the hell out because there is a large military base occupying much of the far northern part of the county, so you can't just walk through there. With limited funds, paying for Greyhound tickets or the like was a barrier to leaving. I also did not want to go through Los Angeles and most or all long distance transit routes through that area. I have serious health issues, including respiratory problems, and the LA basin is horribly polluted. I didn't want to pass through that on my way out.
I found it challenging enough to find a viable route out of San Diego County on a budget that didn't pass through LA that when I finally left, I documented how I did it for the benefit of other homeless people in San Diego who might want out but think there is no viable way out on their budget, in their circumstances:
https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2015/05/o...
Homeless individuals typically come from the general population and when they don't have the funds (or necessary papers) to do things the "usual" way, they may have trouble thinking up alternate methods. Commuter busses are a non intuitive way to travel that work especially well for homeless individuals because they don't require ID, advance purchase of tickets etc and they don't cost much. I spent a lot less on commuter busses than Greyhound would have cost to cover the same route.
I'm trying to figure out how to effectively publicize that fact, as well as help homeless people find other ways to overcome their myriad barriers to relocating so as to take advantage of opportunities to try to make their lives work. I think the degree to which homeless people end up trapped in homelessness because homelessness itself is a barrier to relocation is a significant part of the problem.
The logistical barriers to relocation once you are homeless are quite substantial. But you are correct that barriers to ready solutions for the general population contribute to a slide into homelessness and then help make it hard to escape. This is an element of the problem overlooked by most people: that factors that make it hard for "normal" (housed) people with problems to address their problems fosters a slide into intractable poverty and ultimately homelessness. The homeless are not a separate population. They are drawn from the general population and policies help create situations where they get behind the right ball and then can't get out. We need to find policies and practices that regerse that trend rather than help to entrench it.
Thank you for leaving the comment. I'm disinclined to agree with the implicit assumption that this metric is the entire explanation, but it does resonate with some of my experiences and highlights an aspect of the issue I'm aware of but haven't explicitly focused on.
I'm aware enough of the connection between physical mobility and upward economic mobility that it influenced the grouping of information on my first homeless site:
https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/p/mobilit...