> US HUD says it's ~16% of homeless people, other sources give different numbers, but it's certainly not a majority

"Homeless people" is a broad category that includes people temporarily living in vehicles, bouncing between family members, or sleeping on a friend's couch. It also includes people who are about to lose their home, young people living alone.

But when everyday people use the term, they usually mean, specifically, visible homeless people - i.e. people who are homeless long-term, sleeping rough on the streets or in parks, etc.

The two groups are pretty different to each other. I would be very surprised if the rate of drug addiction in the second group was the same as the rate of drug addiction in the first group

Walk down the makeshift tents on the sidewalks of downtown San Francisco and tell me with a straight face that only 16% of those people are addicted to drugs.

> False, and harmful.

Sorry. But you're either misinformed or actively malicious here.

> US HUD says it's ~16% of homeless people

It absolutely is close to 100% of _unsheltered_ people. Some social workers helping the unsheltered homeless are now saying that they have not seen anybody who's _not_ on drugs or who is not mentally ill.

If you want authoritative source, here's UCLA study from the blessed pre-COVID era: https://capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Health-Co...

> The biggest problem, unsurprisingly, is housing cost.

No, it's really really not.

> The US GAO states that a $100 increase in median rent correlates to a 9% rise in homelessness.

And the correlation disappears when you look at the states with cold climate.