It happened to some friends of mine, who were normal mid-low tier middle aged tech workers and who actually were born in the area. They made a few bad choices a

It happened to some friends of mine, who were normal mid-low tier middle aged tech workers and who actually were born in the area. They made a few bad choices and ended up on the streets in their 40s. One of them killed herself. There seems to be lots of people as you say, but I'm sure if rent was cheap, that would help out a lot. I dunno if you've ever been to the SF Bay Area, but rent is REALLY high. The only reason I stayed as long as I did was I had rent control. The problems listed by this guy are real: the nimbyism of property owners is insane, and the city bureaucracy (pretty much everywhere in the area -Berkeley was particularly lol) is completely bonkers. I'd also point out that civic groups that should help things, like various homeless advocates, generally seem to make things worse. At one point there was an actual $1000+/month subsidy which paid people to remain homeless. You'd lose it if you got housing! I'm pretty sure Newsom got rid of it (to much howling), but it really stuck with me.