Legal weed probably does draw some people in, but the ruling in Martin vs. Boise had a much bigger impact. In that case, the 9th Circuit court, which has jurisdiction over the West Coast, ruled that it was cruel and unusual to prevent people from sleeping outdoors if there was no meaningful alternative available to them, and granted them the defacto right to camp in public spaces.
This ruling really caught every West Coast city with their pants down, because it laid bare the the fact that they had no effective strategy for managing the homelessness crisis, and were papering over the problem by using the police to harass homeless people until they moved on elsewhere. This is basically the strategy that the entire United States uses - make their lives miserable and hope they move on. Lots of people tend to move on in a western direction, until they get to the coast. Some cities are even brazen enough to buy one way Greyhound tickets for their homeless population, and they tend to send them to San Francisco, Portland and Seattle - cities that are trying to approach homelessness humanely. So essentially, the cities on the West Coast are footing the bill for the way the rest of the country treats the homeless, and being prevented from employing those same measures themselves. Add that to an explosion in housing costs, and you’ve got the mess we’re in right now.
This ruling really caught every West Coast city with their pants down, because it laid bare the the fact that they had no effective strategy for managing the homelessness crisis, and were papering over the problem by using the police to harass homeless people until they moved on elsewhere. This is basically the strategy that the entire United States uses - make their lives miserable and hope they move on. Lots of people tend to move on in a western direction, until they get to the coast. Some cities are even brazen enough to buy one way Greyhound tickets for their homeless population, and they tend to send them to San Francisco, Portland and Seattle - cities that are trying to approach homelessness humanely. So essentially, the cities on the West Coast are footing the bill for the way the rest of the country treats the homeless, and being prevented from employing those same measures themselves. Add that to an explosion in housing costs, and you’ve got the mess we’re in right now.