New Study Details How Minimum Wage Laws Fuel Homelessness

California’s own policies have exacerbated its homelessness epidemic, evidence shows.

One thing Lang Martinez said he learned after living on the streets of Ventura County, California, was that being homeless was worse than being in prison.

“It’s a different lifestyle. You think prison is bad? No. Prison’s got structure,” Martinez, a former Los Angeles gang member-turned-advocate against homelessness, recently told California Insider. “The streets got what they call rules of engagement.”

Though Martinez agrees with the conventional wisdom that mental illness and drug abuse are the primary catalysts for homelessness, new academic research suggests the picture is more complicated.

A fresh study out of University of California, San Francisco suggests that losing income is the single biggest driver of homelessness — ahead of mental illness, drug addiction, and other causes — the study authors say .

“I think it’s really important to note how [desperate] poor people are, and how much it is their poverty and the high housing costs that are leading to this crisis,” said Margot Kushel, a physician and leader of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, which conducted the study.

California is home to approximately 30% of the entire U.S. homeless population (115,491 people as of 2022 ), and some advocates expressed hope that the new research would “inform a statewide strategy” to combat the problem.

Separate research, however, suggests California’s own policies have exacerbated its homelessness epidemic, including a new paper written by University of California economist Seth J. Hill titled “ Minimum Wages and Homelessness ” published last month.

Utilizing data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and other sources, Hill examined 100 cities from 2006-2019 to determine the relationship between wage floors and homelessness. The findings are bleak.

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