Phil was living in Berkeley and made brief jaunts into O-Town mostly due to the fact that his SSI meetings and tattoo parlor were there. What's more he was is the tonier part of Berkeley (power level) I used to shop at the same "Whole Paycheck" market where he bought his queso. It's a huge University town so the population is young and largely transient themselves and the whole place is extremely tolerant of bullshit, Charles Manson founded his "Family" on the steps of the Berkeley campus library. Both Berkeley and the Oakland Hills are occupied by very large homes with very deep pockets. Phil didn't go into Oakland proper because it is full of Black Panthers NOT from Wakanda and actual vatos who would curb stomp him in a heartbeat. He once said that when he migrated to Cali he was originally headed to San Diego and I suspect he avoided "America's Finest City" because it is very full of Vatos who would be happy to carve a permanent smile on him and take him right across the border to finish the job. The upper East Bay and the population on Telegraph Ave and San Pablo ave. welcome weird and Hipster trash beyond measure, so he was happy to stroll the "nuclear free zone" with the rest of the human refuse we ignore -- I still don't know how he got banned from The Long Haul. There's a great pub across the street but we never saw him the wild, dern it. (We did see Jordman at the train station once).
Also, didn't some industrious Kiwi discover that he actually did have an apartment or at least a room in Berkeley, thereby solving the differing patois of "houseless" versus "homeless"? I'd love to see him spend a day in Fruitvale. Casa La Zorra Loca is a shipping container halfway buried in Desert Hot Springs (about 2 hours from LA) and I don't even think the Troon corps of Palm Springs would put up with his whinging for more than an hour, it's probably also too close to Real Mexico and Real Mexicans and it's 120 in the summer out there. (please forgive Power Level)
Tl;DR: I wouldn't expect to see Taters in So Cal anytime soon.