California’s homeless crisis stems from drug addiction and mental health problems and poses the frightening threat of causing a widespread plague, Fox News contributor Emily Compagno said Friday.

“I lived on the West Coast my entire life and I’ve seen first hand how the homeless crisis is spiraling out of control in cities like Seattle and Portland and Los Angeles. And in California, things are going from bad to worse with an explosion of trash build-up and rat infestation,” Compagno told “Fox & Friends.”

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Compagno went on to say, “And as someone who has practiced law there for years, I just find it heartbreaking and, in fact, the situation is so dire, experts have been sounding the alarm about the potential of a plague outbreak.”

Compagno and Dr. Drew Pinsky investigated the conditions on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Pinksy says “the entire L.A. basin is at risk for a public health crisis. If it ends up being typhus or a plague, I don’t know what it’s going to be but the rodents are a vector and we are one of the only cities in the country who doesn’t have a rodent control plan.”

Following his observation of “garbage, rats, and feces” on an L.A. street, Pinksy said the sanitation promotes the rat population. “Estimates are that we have more rats than humans. About 12 million rats here.” He also said that typhus is “exploding” and exists in certain areas.

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Compagno cited mental health and drug addiction as the “root issue.”

“The fact is that these diseases are really imminently about to bleed through to the community," she said, "and yet all of the elected officials there just make it about affordable housing and really it’s not. It’s so much larger and more urgent than that.”