Why is there are alot of homeless people in california?

Yes but jot nearly as much as Hawaii.

High cost of living.  Many people living on minimum wage.

Because there are a LOT of every kind of people in California.

It's the most populous state.

Duh.

the cost of rent compared to wages

FOFFA is telling it like it is about here in los angeles 

People who post on Yahoo Answers with bad grammar are found by the grammar police and sent to California to live on the streets. 

The reasons are myriad but here are a few:

- Military ports that served as transportation end point for veterans returning from war. Those that had psychological problems often just got stuck here and you still find Vietnam era vets on the streets unwilling or unable to seek V.A. assistance. 

- The Summer of Love that saw a lot of people migrate to California unable to afford housing. This translated into an environment of couch surfing and the general attitude of transience that this state, San Francisco specifically, is known for. This rep still serves as a pull factor for unhoused persons from around the country. California is just a magnet for this. 

- Mass immigration/migration combined with very restrictive building codes meant more people than housing, especially lower income housing. It's insanely expensive and difficult to build in the CA cities that host the most homelessness. 

- Municipal corruption in the major coastal cities. At this moment at least two former L.A. City Council members are under federal indictment for taking bribes from developers. This allows developers to building high income housing most can't afford while ignoring the real need, low income housing. L.A. (city and county) has raised over a billion dollars from measures H and HH yet most of it's been spent on political crony "consultants" and very little has been spent on housing. 

- The State Supreme Court's misinterpretation of the 9th Circuit's ruling in Martin v. Boise. This ruling stated that homeless people couldn't be made to vacate public property at night when they were sleeping. California has taken this to mean cops can't move tents off of public sidewalks at any time. Hence the massive tent cities you now see all over L.A. In other District Court jurisdictions the unhoused are more likely to accept shelter assistance because being on the street means police harassment, not so under the 9th Circuit. 

- Lack of mental health and addiction treatment infrastructure. A very large percentage of the unhoused population suffers with these ailments (and refuses services when offered because of them). 

- Lack of homeless shelter spaces and security to make what exists actually safe to use. The "temporarily unhoused" (families, those down on their luck w/o mental illness or addiction) don't like to use the shelters because of the conditions there. 

- L.A. County alone has a 10 year waiting list for those seeking Section 8 rental assistance and when it is offered it's often so far outside the CBD of L.A. that people would prefer to live in their cars so they can have a job. Moving out to Lancaster isn't that practical when the only job you could find is in DTLA. 

High cost of living.  Many people living on minimum wage. One emergency can put them dire straits.   

In San Francisco today, on the coast of the beautiful Pacific Ocean, while the east coast gets blasted with snow, it is in the low to mid 60's, Christmas Day. Yes, it's going to rain from mid afternoon into the night.

There's no reason to point fingers, there's nobody to blame, there is no hidden agenda.

This is NOT a difficult concept.

The government gives out lots of freebies.  In most areas the weather is mild enough that they can live outside.

It's expensive and the weather is too nice.