I have gone from the south to California twice, but both times with assistance from family. It is crazy expensive in most of the desirable places in California, but here is the key, the cost of living is not magic. It would be just as expensive to live anywhere else. The actual cost of living is the same everywhere. You are lucky to barely scrape by anywhere you go. The trick is getting to the destination getting established in the first place. This is super difficult on one's psychology. When I left behind everyone I knew to be on my own, I did not expect it to be so hard on me, but it was downright traumatic in my early twenties. California is like a foreign country compared to anywhere in the South. It takes years to really embrace the difference in a positive way.

Most people that I know of that moved here on their own were either independently wealthy or lived out of their car for awhile. Car life is not as easy as it may be elsewhere. There is an enormous homeless population here and they are deeply prejudiced against. The weather in the LA basin is what drives people to live here both well off and homeless. It almost never never freezes in the LA basin. The ocean follows a deep water upwelling pattern unlike anything on the Atlantic East coast or gulf. That regulates temperatures differently.

Anyways, the average opportunities present in any region determine the cost of living. So you must compete with the average person in the region for average pay to barely scrape by like everywhere else. How you personally fit into that average is what really matters. Escaping prejudice is always a matter of fleeing to intellectuals in terms of stereotypes and averages. California has backwards prejudice people too in some places. It is not a panacea, but there are less insane scientific skeptics here than elsewhere.

Stay safe.