It came as a surprise to me too when I first heard about it, but it kind of makes sense. There are a lot of people living at lower incomes (not necessarily poor, just low), and in the Bay Area, their biggest expense is rent. All it takes is for them to lose their job or incur a big medical expense and they can't afford their apartment. So a lot of people who would normally live in cheaper apartments are eventually forced on to the street.

Yeah, i'm not opposed to high rent costs, but San Francisco is in the top two in the world in cost for renting apartments. This is just insane and it seems better for the city in the long run if this could be brought down.

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-cities-worldw...

It’s called not being able to pay rent.

Are a disproportionate number of those people suffering from addiction and or mental health issues? Yes. But make no mistake, the gap between people apartment shopping and people living on the street is frighteningly small in a housing market as expensive as SF.