I don't get it. Is your premise is that every person making minimum should be able to live anywhere they want in the US, and if they can't the government is responsible?
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This isn't really an abstract problem that requires reductio ad absurdum type arguments. I grew up in the UK and I visit the valley sometimes. There are several things you immediately notice:
1) Every building is incredibly short.
2) Every building is spaced very far apart.
3) Every road is incredibly wide.
Even fairly unimportant roads, the sort that have rinky dink little cafes on them, will often have three lanes in each direction or more.
The Valley has a homelessness problem because the people who live there refuse to let anyone build tall, dense housing complexes. There's so much space here you could crush the homelessness and poverty problems instantly by just relaxing zoning rules, it wouldn't even take a social housing programme. But instead all the space is taken up with tiny low rise buildings surrounded by enormous parking lots.
Yes, but why should they? If a community likes wide roads, low traffic, short buildings, are they somehow obligated to knock down those buildings so that other people can live there?
There’s a reasonable claim that once you live somewhere, you’re entitled to an affordable way to remain there.
Providing this entitlement requires eliminating everyone else’s freedom to move there. Obviously CA can’t directly enact an immigration policy, but affordable housing activists are focused on moving from market to lottery/waiting list allocation of housing, where longtime locals are prioritized. “Affordable housing.” Trouble is, they are only succeeding at this for new buildings; outsiders are still able to outbid locals for old buildings, which are most of the market. But stronger rent control could stop that.