Sobering data on California homelessness

The Wall Street Journal on 9.24 outlines the role of government policies may have in exacerbating the state's growing homelessness crisis.

Here are some key data points:

* California's unsheltered population increased 20% in the last three years, compared to 5% in the other 49 states.

* With 12% of the country's population, California accounts for half of those living on the streets.

* Government economists project that homelessness would fall by 54% in San Francisco and 40% in Los Angeles if housing costs approximated production costs more closely as they do in Texas, Florida, and Arizona.

* Twenty-eight percent of California's unsheltered have a severe mental illness, based on interviews with homeless.

* Twenty percent of California's unsheltered are chronic substance abusers, based on interviews with homeless.

* California's homeless rate began climbing in 2015 after voters approved a referendum effectively decriminalizing drug possession and theft.

* The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year made it harder for officials to remove people on the streets by barring Boise, Idaho from enjoining a ban on public camping.