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It could hardly come as a surprise to anyone who travels around the state: the number of people who are homeless in California continues to rise at a steady clip. Every year, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development releases a Point in Time count of the homeless population. This year that number reached nearly 554,000 — a 1 percent increase from last year, driven by the dramatic surge in West Coast cities.

More than one-quarter of the total homeless population nationwide lives in California, roughly 114,000. The vast majority are “unsheltered” — a more bureaucratic term to describe the thousands living on the streets, under freeways and tucked into grassy fields and parks in cities all around the state.

“It’s certainly a bigger increase than we would have expected,” said Ben Metcalf, the director of the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. “There’s a tale of different countries here: We’re seeing a real significant increase and much of the rest of the country is not. We’re all doing the same things, but here the rent is too damn high. We’ve seen an incredible increase in the cost of housing.”