Texas' official policy on homelessness and drug users for at least a decade was to buy them a bus ticket to California. Gov Rick Perry bragged about it in a presidential debate. His successor bragged about it in a gubernatorial debate.

When the LA Times tried to survey the homeless population two years ago, fewer than 25% of the homeless in Hollywood were from California and none of them were locals. Want to guess the #1 state of residence for LA's homeless (Hint: it's Texas.)

But this article is right: once LA started buying the non-local homeless bus tickets back to their real home cities, things started getting better in LA. It's now part of our current mayor's homeless strategy to convince people to go back home.

Also: California defines homelessness differently (more broadly) than most states. Using the California definition, Texas, North Dakota, Florida, New York, and Oklahoma all have almost as many homeless. But when those states redefine homelessness to mean something narrower, of course they're going to look better. If California were to limit the "homeless" population to just Californians who became homeless (meaning that they owned, rented, or otherwise had housing before losing it), it would have fewer homeless than Texas.