SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- How do you go from living off investment income in a million-dollar house in Natomas to sleeping in an unheated shed in somebody’s backyard?
All you have to do, says 51-year-old Scott, who just moved into a new county-funded sober living house in Sacramento, is stay drunk all day every day for 10 years, and “do a hell of a lot of meth.”
What percentage of those living on the street wound up there because of an addiction is a question that advocates and researchers fiercely and endlessly debate. Some point to studies that suggest almost all homelessness is caused by a lack of affordable housing. Others just as passionately cite evidence to the contrary, including the two-thirds of homeless people who answered one survey by listing substance abuse as a major factor.
