Shabby tent encampments erected in city parks, along streets and beneath overpasses. Homeless people, many with mental health or drug problems, sprawled across sidewalks or subway seats. Needles and other paraphernalia often nearby. America’s homelessness scourge is huge and shows few signs of getting better.

California is by far the worst hit. It has about a third of all the country’s homeless people, and Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, and other Golden State cities have among the largest numbers of unsheltered people in the country.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development says 582,462 people did not have a permanent home on the single night in January last year when researchers carried out their most recent snapshot survey. Some 60 percent of the destitute were in shelters, crashing with friends or relatives, or had other temporary digs. The rest were ‘unsheltered’ — sleeping in cars, on the streets or in derelict buildings.

They show that about a third of the entire US homeless population — 171,521 people — are in California. That includes more than half of the country’s unsheltered homeless population, 115,491 people. The Golden State has the country’s highest rate of homelessness, with 44 non-housed people out of every 10,000 residents. It is followed closely by Vermont, Oregon, and Hawaii.