Accordingly to recently released federal data, every Bay Area county except Sonoma and Marin has seen homelessness increase since 2015.
Homelessness in California overall rose 3% to more than 187,000. The U.S. homeless population spiked 18% to more than 770,000 from 2023 to 2024, record highs for all three.
At a news conference in Oakland last month Governor Newsom reported that “Forty states saw larger increases than California. We’re making progress, but we have to continue to do more.”
Notably, although Californians make up just 11% of the total U.S. population nearly a quarter of all homeless people nationwide live in the state. California’s homeless population has swelled 16% during and the Bay Area’s homeless population has jumped 46% over the past decade.
The data indicates that in the Bay Area overall, homelessness increased by 20% in Contra Costa County, 15% in San Mateo County, and 10% in San Francisco. About two-thirds of homeless residents live on the street.
Of the Bay Area’s three major cities, Oakland now has the highest per-capita homelessness rate with 1,258 out of every 100,000 residents lacking housing. In San Francisco the rate is 1,028 per 100,000 residents, and an estimated homeless population of 8,323.A homelessness rate is 654 per 100,000, with 6,340 unhoused residents was reported for San Jose.
Gee really I’m in Sonoma County CA and am without housing so nooo not true!! Open your eyes smell the coffee reporters? Lol.
Funny newsom stated that he poured approximately 250,000.00 per head into housing the homeless, yet not a single one of us received anything even remotely close to a fraction of that. Sure they ramped up the shelter and a soup kitchen or two, even bought up a hotel ok so how was that going to solve the homeless plight? The truth is they don’t want to solve the homeless problem. They want the revenue the cause pumps into the system. They don’t want to solve it because then they wouldn’t get all that money. I lived in beardbrook village and all the way thru moes in Modesto and every single thing we received was donated goods. All the way from food to the tents. The whole while promising a hand up. They blew smoke up the majority of our asses while trying to keep us dependant on them for the scraps they doled out. Sure they helped a few, very few, but a few people with kids and one or two crazys. The shelter was then and still is a joke. There’s still some people living there that have been there since moes closed. I never went there. I pulled myself out of the streets no help from them. I’ve stayed out of the streets no help from them. If I had waited for the help they promised I’d still be waiting in the streets. But hey all you shelter workers and city council vand everyone else all the way up to good ol newsom I just wanna say how good y’all look in those new cars wearing those new clothes enjoying those pay raises, yep looks mighty fine on you