‘NOTHING TO CATCH US:’ How California’s homelessness crisis surged.

Many blame mental illness and drug addiction for the soaring numbers, but experts say that is only part of the puzzle. The state’s severe housing shortage that has forced rents to increase at twice the rate of the national average and put the median price of a single family home at $615,000, has also contributed to the crisis.

John Maceri, CEO of the Los Angeles-based social services provider The People Concern, said social safety nets, like affordable housing and job training, are all but gone, leaving already vulnerable people to fend for themselves.

“The housing price of liberalism,” as Thomas Sowell dubbed it – and it doesn’t come cheap.

Related: From John Stossel at Reason TV: Bad Laws Worsen the Homeless Crisis. San Francisco encourages homelessness by limiting housing, offering generous welfare, and failing to enforce basic laws: