I will be candid when I don't have "deep statistics". I believe in statistics, compiled, collected and analyzed by professional statisticians. The OP is LIKELY correct about CA percent of total US population. For other research, I tracked it from the early 1960s to end of Dubya Bush's second term. It was 12% more or less through all that time. Together with Texas, a total of 19% of the US population produced something above 50% of US presidencies in that time. IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY, 55% of presidencies and 60% of presidential terms. Also -- check my assertion here -- each of those states have the largest total miles of paved highway.
We lived in central Illinois until I was 10. I missed the snow, and I missed the rolling, dark storm fronts of spring rainstorms.
Here, the rainfall is sparse, the air is dirty despite years of government effort to make it much, much cleaner than it was. Yes -- the beaches. Yes -- the mountains. Yes -- the XLNT beef tamales, produced by an LA company in business for 125 years. Yes to all of it. I can have the snow during certain seasons, if willing to drive to the mountains. Seattle has rain half the days of the year, and they have clean air up there.
There is an out-migration of Californians. They all write letters to XLNT, complaining that they can't buy the tamales in Wisconsin, Michigan and other places.
As for the homeless problem, there are plenty of other places where sleeping on the street in December is less daunting than living outdoors in Chicago. Maybe homeless people, voting with their feet, follow the myths about beaches and sunshine. Who knows? Needs more statistics. As for the price of housing, that is also a problem, exacerbated by Proposition 13 tax rates -- or so it has been argued. If you've owned your home for 40 years, you're paying sustainable taxes. If you sell it to buy another property, you will move to another state.