What would our society look like if we didn't allow the greed of property owners to displace people from the opportunity to sleep indoors?

No matter what, there is a cost to homelessness. Most people expect that cost to be paid by the homeless themselves; after all, that's the status quo.

Those who can't afford a home, by definition, can't pay for homelessness. That's literally the problem. The only possible solution is someone else paying. Anything else is just ignorance.

Homelessness, at least the kind that is highly visible, has relatively little to do with the cost of housing, and a lot to do with lack of mental health care, including addiction care. There are a lot of options for people before they end up on the street (including moving to lower cost of living areas, which is what most people do rather than become homeless), and there are a lot of supportive options for people where the primary barrier is income, rather than inability to manage one’s own affairs.

The status quo is that blue cities spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year encouraging homelessness while blocking the development of new housing, while people who have their shit together need to deal with random violence, open drug abuse, lack of access to parks and sidewalks, and all of the other problems that come with running an open-air asylum for years without respite.

This morning on my way to work I had to walk in the middle of the road (sidewalk was covered by tents - the city is being sued because it is a real ADA issue), try to avoid second-hand smoke of what appeared to be meth but maybe was fentanyl, and step over human feces, all while watching out for needles. The sidewalks are soaked with urine which unfortunately isn’t washed away in the relatively dry summers. I have to keep my head on a swivel because people randomly test you; last week I saw someone being chased by a crazed person through downtown, a week before that someone tried but failed to suckerpunch a passer by, and earlier this summer we had a cherished member of the community randomly killed while waiting for the bus (https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2022/07/murder-charge-now-f...). There are several similar stories this year. I’ve lived in Portland coming on two years, and even as a tall man, I have been chased, followed, lunged at, called expletives, witnessed several crimes, and had a mentally I’ll person try to run me down with their car, running until I eventually found a police officer to intervene.

Homelessness is not just a cost of living issue. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/terri-zinze...

> Homelessness, at least the kind that is highly visible, has relatively little to do with the cost of housing, and a lot to do with lack of mental health care...

Hence the increased cost of housing such a person.

Is there waste in these programs from greed and politics? Definitely. Would a perfect implementation that completely avoids that greed match the market rate? I doubt it.

When you buy or rent a home, you generally must provide evidence that you are a stable reliable person; both to illustrate your ability to make regular payments, and to prove you won't become a nuisance to your neighbors, which would ultimately introduce its own cost.

Mental health is core to the issue of homelessness. Not having a stable home is core to the issue of mental health. Do you see the race condition? This is the part of the algorithm that requires intervention.

We can and should do more to help with mental health, especially in the US. Housing is an integral part of that. It's going to cost a lot. We should definitely do whatever we can to mitigate the greed that inflates that cost, but cost itself isn't enough of Ann excuse to give up on humanity.