See Utah's Housing First program. Dallas is starting to implement similar things. It turns out that if you give people a place to live first without making the

See Utah's Housing First program. Dallas is starting to implement similar things. It turns out that if you give people a place to live first without making them jump through a bunch of degrading hoops a much larger percentage of them will become functioning members of society again. Yes some people will end up back on the streets. Yes some people have mental illnesses. Doesn't change the statistics that giving homeless people free housing leads to many more of them getting off the streets permanently, getting jobs, and becoming self-sufficient. The idea that you can punish people to successfulness is the Victorian-age meme that just won't die.