[ZainRiz]

That link didn't say anything about why the homeless population went up, other than "rents went up".

It doesn't explain what stops people from looking for jobs in other, cheaper places, which is something I'm struggling to understand

[InitialLastName]

> It doesn't explain what stops people from looking for jobs in other, cheaper places, which is something I'm struggling to understan

What's hard to understand? Moving anywhere for a new job is expensive, and most people (even those with well-above-median incomes) have no savings. Most jobs don't include relocation, and the first paycheck doesn't come for ~4 weeks after starting. That means that moving as one person bringing nothing with you, you still need to house yourself for a month with no income, likely no connections (since you've moved somewhere presumably away from the family/friends in your hometown), and where you have no idea about local circumstances.

[ZainRiz]

Maybe there's a difference of perspective here. My parents are both one of many, many siblings who were all born in Pakistan.

Their opportunities in Pakistan were pretty poor, so most of those siblings chose to emigrate and leave. Now most of those siblings are spread out around the US and Canada. My family moved to the US from Pakistan after his employer in Pakistan was unable to pay it's employees for months and we started from scratch here. This isn't just a new city, but a whole new country and culture.

All those siblings had to struggle like crazy to establish themselves, but it wasn't impossible.

Clearly there's a different perspective that others like yourself are seeing which I haven't understood.

[abalone]

Very often conservatives will tell "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" stories that worked for them. But there are literally tens of millions of people in Pakistan who cannot even afford the plane tickets yet along the other costs of moving their entire family internationally. That your family could do that indicates that it had relatively good resources. Also, you didn't mention whether your family had an immigrant community network here that could help you get started and find work. Your case is no doubt an example of hard work and struggle but it is not proof that addiction and mental illness are the primary things keeping people homeless.