Worth noting that the actual tents are cheap and what's expensive is the security, social services, meals, etc that come along with it.

For comparison, the cost to incarcerate someone in California is around $7k/mo and what that money is spent on is broken down at https://lao.ca.gov/PolicyAreas/CJ/6_cj_inmatecost

Last I checked, California cost per inmate was more than double the national average. Interestingly, from what I remember, 20 years ago the same cost in California was about national average.

California should investigate contracting the prison service to Oklahoma: Oklahoma spends per prisoner something like a quarter of California spends, so California could save lots of money this way, and Oklahoma would make a lot of money, a great example of positive sum trade.

Of course, that’s not going to happen, because California rulers don’t want to incarcerate all these people, and from this perspective, high cost is a feature, not a bug: it helps in arguing against incarceration.

Right off the bat I'm not sure you want to look at Oklahoma as a shining example of how to treat prisoners.

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2019/feb/5/oklahoma-num...

> tents are cheap

But that plot of land its pitched on might be worth $200 per month (using FiDi pre-pandemic parking rates).