This is CBS I On The World.

Here's John Batchler.

This is CBS I On The World.

I'm John Batchler, Wall Street Journal reporting on the Homeless of California, aka the Unhoused

of California.

The number of homeless people in California grew by about 50% between 2014 and 2022, 50%.

The state, which accounts for 12% of the U.S. population, has about half of the nation's

unsheltered homeless, an estimated 115,000 people, according to federal and state data last

year.

It also has among the highest average rent and medium home prices in the U.S.

Jeff Bliss is Pacific Watch, and Jeff has helped me report on the unhoused, the homeless

of the Pacific coast for more than a decade.

We can guess we started well before 2014.

The first time I remember us coming across a way of talking about what's going on is

in Seattle where there was a report of the homeless industrial complex.

These are the state apparatus, the federal apparatus, the NGOs, the volunteers, the churches,

all coming together to deal with the obvious problem that you can see in photographs in

the Wall Street Journal.

Jeff, a very good evening to you.

The journal features a photograph that is amazing.

It's called the Wood Street Camp, and it looks like a set from, oh, I guess you could say

this would be Mad Max 5, something like that, all trash stuff together.

...