California has about 12 percent of the nation’s population but more than a quarter of America’s homeless people — 181,000-plus at last count. There are many reasons for this outsize problem, including generations-old state laws that deinstitutionalized mentally ill people as well as high housing costs. But since the pandemic turned fentanyl abuse and tent camps into inescapable symptoms of a public health crisis, state policymakers have been under intense pressure to rethink California’s approach to