"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live."
Irish proverbThere are lots of similarity between California's overall geography and Catalina Island due to the fact that Santa Catalina island is only 22 miles off the Southern California mainland. However, there is one major difference the one can spot the minute he/she steps on the island that there are no homeless people on the island. I tried to look up if there is any information online about the homeless in Avalon, CA but I couldn't find any helpful resources, so I am making my assumption based on my personal observations during my stay on the island.
I believe the main reason why you can not find homeless wandering around the city's street is that the homeless can not afford getting to the island. Adding to that, most of the people who can afford to reside in the city of Avalon are generally from the upper class. Moreover, I couldn't find any shelters on Catalina and the closest homeless shelter is located in San Pedro (http://www.homelessshelterdirectory.org/cgi-bin/id/city.cgi?city=Avalon&state=CA).
In Los Angeles we can observe the opposite, most of the city's streets contain lots of homeless people. One of the reasons that encouraged them to sleep in LA's streets is the year round moderate weather and the lack of major hurricanes and storms. Furthermore, the fact that California is considered a rich state, lot of charity organizations and shelters are available to provide services to the needy population.
