They're mostly self-inflicted. Prop 47 caused a great amount of problems for the state by decriminalizing all drugs and theft up to $1000/per incident. We are just attracting junkies/criminals from other states where they actually enforce the law... Most of the homeless are not even from California when you talk to them. They come here for the lack of drug laws and ability to steal to fund their habit--and many cities even give debit cards to them. We're actively subsidizing the worst of the worst people and encouraging them to move here. Now we have organized shoplifting rings and junkies on fentanyl and meth living under every bridge and overpass. The state is in an epic free fall of quality of life since 2014 when prop 47 passed. There's no common sense anymore and our politicians are all crooks trying to personally enrich themselves or friends/family at the expense of everyone else. The only reason the bottom hasn't fallen out is big tech, Hollywood, agriculture/wine, beaches/Tahoe/tourism, and all the taxes they pay. I don't understand how people aren't more sick of putting up with this. I know I'm sick of seeing open drug use, prostitution, filthy streets, and not feeling like any public spaces are actually safe anymore.

Beyond that... it's nearly impossible to build an affordable market rate house, starting a small business is more difficult than anywhere else due to regulation, our public schools are terrible.... but yeah there are some really well run tech companies that pay absurd amounts of money so a lot of people are still willing to put up with it all. I think there will be a breaking point though...

Every time some liberal/progressive voter has to clean up feces/needles off their front stoop, is robbed in their driveway, takes their kids to a public park but a homeless person is there doing drugs in the bathroom (or much much worse), or the cops tell them they can't remove the homeless camp on their block, I suspect they become ever-so-slightly more conservative. Eventually this will turn even the bluest state red. Democrats are digging their own grave by pandering to nonsense and ignoring the reality of what it's actually like living here.

When I grew up here in the 90s, the homeless were more like 1-5 per 100,000--not it feels like it's 50x to 200x that. They also weren't allowed to just camp in public spaces and leave ecological disasters everywhere they went... Whatever policies we've enacted need to urgently be repealed. Ideology now trumps objective reality.