According to U.S. Department of Housing statistics, the number of homeless people in California has increased by 40% in the last 5 years. California is home to 12% of the U.S. population, but is home to half of the population living on the streets of the United States. An estimated 66,000 homeless people live in Los Angeles County alone. Some might think that this problem has not been solved due to lack of resources, however, California in recent years has approved all kinds of taxes and mechanisms aimed specifically at this problem. In the 2021 state budget, $12 billion was committed to address homelessness over the next 2 years. To get a sense of what this amount means, if you were to divide that value by the number of homeless people statewide (160,000), each person is allocated $75,000. So the questions are: why hasn't so much money solved the problem for years? Why hasn't the free market been able to provide solutions? And, how could a law that went into effect in early 2022 be an initial step toward solving the crisis?

据美国住房部的统计数据显示,加州无家可归者的数量在过去5年里增加了40%,加州的人口仅占美国总人口的12%,但它却是美国一半没家可归者的聚集地。据统计,光是在洛杉矶县就有66000名无家可归者。有人可能会认为这个问题之所以没有得到妥善解决是因为加州政府缺乏相关资源。然而事实上加州近年来批准了各种各样针对这个问题的税收减免机制并建立了大量致力于解决该问题的相关机构。在2021年的州财政预算中,政府承诺将花费120亿美元以期在未来两年内解决这个问题。如果你想更加直观地了解这个数字的话,只需要将这个数字除以全加州无家可归者的数量(16万),得出的结论就是每个人可以分到7.5万美元。那么问题来了:为什么加州多年来花了如此多的钱却依旧没能解决这个问题?为什么自由市场无法为这一问题提供解决方案?而且,2022年初生效的法律是否又能成为我们解决危机的第一步?