&gt; The vast majority of San Francisco&#x27;s homeless people are, in fact, people who were living in SF and paying rent, lost one or more jobs, and subsequently became homeless.<p>Look closely. 70% claim to be so ... but only ~30% were actually paying rent. That&#x27;s 21%, certainly not the vast majority. Also: if you got kicked out of a shelter, it counts as having been &quot;living&quot; in SF. :-)<p>Plus, this was a self-reported survey. Homeless people will often lie to get your sympathy. Case in point: the whole &quot;I need to buy food&quot; spiel. Most of the time that I have offered to do so, they hum and haw and ignore my offer. Some in fact take the food and throw it away. Very rarely do they actually eat the food.  The point is: if the homeless think they can get more sympathy by claiming to be lifelong residents of SF, many will claim to be so.