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Well, the first guy profiled could've used his "his savings and his investments" and his "daughter's college fund" to move instead of spending it all on rent. Downsizing is a pretty common occurrence in most parts of the country, but in SF there's really not much to downsize to.

If you're connected to the community you live in (coaching, etc), your child's doing well in a good school, it becomes easy to extend yourself "one more week" in order to maintain that, hoping things will change - and then past the "oh shit" moment you realize you're past the point of effectively affording to move and restart life. Plus, in 2009, i don't think there were places to move to to get an easy job. The guy did apply to 800 places...

One example -> the city of San Francisco offers bus tickets home for homeless people who have relatives or friends in another town who are willing to take them in. The program is called "Homeward Bound."

Source: http://www.sfhsa.org/79.htm

I don't know how the homeless travel, but they do. After all, they get to SF somehow.