According to the news in the US press, rising housing costs in San Francisco, one of the cities with the highest quality of life in the country, forces residents living in low-income areas to leave their homes.
While the rate of homeless people is increasing due to the high cost of living, some of the people who have been displaced from their homes because they cannot afford the costs also live on the streets. Drug addiction is among the most important reasons for the increase in the number of homeless people in San Francisco.
More than $20 billion has been spent on the homeless in California since 2020. In the state of San Francisco, the budget allocated to the homeless since 2016 has increased from $224 million to $672 million.
According to 2022 data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, approximately 582,000 people live on the streets across the country. In particular, the states of California, Vermont and Oregon are known as the states with the highest number of homeless people.
According to the US National Low-Income Housing Association, a person earning $15.50 an hour for the minimum wage in the country must work 90 hours a week to rent a one-bedroom house.