[throwaway0a5e]

They're not even US specific. They're "a handful of cities with insane local economic conditions" specific.

Homelessness is not a rampant problem except on the west coast. Yes big cities have homeless populations but they mostly cycle into various shelters (often church run) where the ones that don't have serious mental issues get their lives back on track. It's not rampant like it is on the west coast.

Spend a few years riding the MTA, T or Metro and then compare to BART if you don't believe me.

California can kind of make the "hospitable climate" excuse but even rainy Seattle is just carped bombed with tents. Places like DC and Miami are not exactly known for exemplifying effective social services yet somehow they manage to have much less of a problem than the west coast.

[wwright]

My dude I saw homeless people in towns with a population of 4000 in Mississippi. This is just false.

[throwaway0a5e]

I don't think you realize just how much more pervasive it is on the west coast.

Your anecdote is just an anecdote.

[rpdillon]

I don't know much about homelessness, but I searched and found this map.

https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/map/#fn[]=1400&fn[]=2...

When I checked the box to view percentages, homelessness seems pretty consistent with the major outliers being CA and NY. CA says 26% and NY says 16%, with most everyone else on low single digits. I'm not entirely sure what those numbers mean, though.

[s5300]

If you're going to talk about homelessness on the West Coast, at least give us statistics on what percentage are native to the West Coast, what percentage came from out of state and became homeless later on, and what percentage were literally homeless in another state and given a bus ticket to the West Coast because this is a fairly rampant thing.

[bakedbeanz]

Your anecdote is also just an anecdote. You're making sweeping claims without evidence and are adding nothing of substance to the discussion.

[sweetheart]

> Homelessness is not a rampant problem except on the west coast

Not that this source is anything close to a comprehensive view into national homelessness patterns, but it's clearly an issue throughout the country [1].

[1] https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/map/#fn[]=1400&fn[]=2...