December 17, 2017 – Thirteen-hundred miles from his rural Arkansas home, Tyler McCollough paces across a motel parking lot, veins bulging at his temple, anxiously gripping himself as the pangs of heroin withdrawal intensify … But one aspect of the problem hasn’t been widely examined: What connection, if any, exists between the outsized number of rehab centers in Southern California and the region’s fast-growing homeless population? There’s evidence to suggest a portion of the growth in some Orange County cities, and to a lesser degree in Los Angeles, can be attributed to the rehab industry’s aggressive recruitment of addicts – and their lucrative insurance payments – from around the country.