Kotkin Housing/Homelessness Q1
To some extent homelessness is a unique problem, more tied to family and social dysfunction. But it increasingly represents part of a continuum that extends from people sharing apartments, sleeping on couches of friends and in their cars. High rents certainly contribute here, forcing more working people out in the streets. Laws that have decriminalized vagrancy have helped normalize homeless encampments. Of course, our mild climate makes homelessness somewhat less perilous than, say, Chicago.
