I've lived in the Bay area most of my (32 yo) life and in the past 7-10 years, the level of homelessness seems to be spinning out of control. If you've driven on 580 through Berkeley or parts of Oakland, you have seen encampments and trash piles that would seem unfathomable for the "5th largest economy in the world". It isn't normal.
What strategies/initiatives should be considered outside of the traditional methods (shelters, methadone clinics, street teams sharing helpful resources etc) that may be able to help with this is increasingly prominent issue??
1. the health crises of addiction and mental illness
2. the economic crises of wealth inequality and housing costs.
These both create "chronically" homeless people, but they're distinct enough in their situations (the former are outcasts of society, the latter are functioning and mostly employed but "down on their luck").
The first thing we need to do is educate other Californians on the differences, because the solutions are going to look different. The former is going to essentially require permanent supportive housing units and something that looks more like the old asylum system than most of us are comfortable with right now, while the latter is going to require dismantling environmental and other local ordinances that inhibit new construction, while abolishing rent control and prop 13 to return housing stock to the market and create sustainable vacancy rates alongside new construction.
The bigger political issue for the bay area is that between the five counties, state, and god knows how many municipal governments any kind of meaningful change requires collectivism across the entire region. Basically we're all in this together, it affects all of us pretty equally, and yet any kind of change that would do something is impossible when it creates a legal fight.