This is such a hard problem to solve and there will only be less and less money for it. It is a good approach to start helping people to help themselves, rather

This is such a hard problem to solve and there will only be less and less money for it. It is a good approach to start helping people to help themselves, rather than saying "we'll help you AFTER you fix your hardest problems yourself.". This makes no sense and doesn't work. As shown here and in other cities (http://gladwell.com/million-dollar-murray/ http://gladwell.com/million-dollar-murray/), leaving homeless until they get so bad that they need ambulance and ER services is VERY expensive. In our local town, the major hospital group did an experiment. They took a look at the top 50 patients that used the most of their ER and other services. They hired people whose job it was to make sure they stayed on track, got them to appointments (rides and public transport are big issues), made sure they stayed on their meds and followed treatment plans. It was a great success. They used ~70% of the resources that they used before. BUT, the hospital made lots of money on the use of those services, the experiment cost the hospital almost $1M!! It was not continued as hospitals exist to make money not help people. So let's say a city takes a stance to be progressive and helps their homeless and (largely) gets them back on their feet. Pretty soon everyone in the surrounding areas hear about all the help and services and now one small town is dealing with all homeless that can get to this town. Smaller towns only have so much money to invest in an effort such as this. Additionally, what all jobs can you find to give all these people at $9/hour? There are only so many things you can have them do before you start cutting municipal jobs to create work and putting others on unemployment. I saw a program several years ago where people that came into some of these programs, were set up with social security disability (especially those with mental issues and substance abuse issues) and give them a home base to get other program support. At least this uses federal resources and doesn't put such a strain on the local municipal budgets and resources. This is a completely solvable problem but it takes a tremendous commitment of will. The other issue is that homeless don't vote. It is a problem that has to get fixed because it is the right thing to do, there is little political gain or public outcry in most cities. It is more expedient to work on issues like creating blue collar jobs and healthcare because of the public opinion payoff. Just my two cents.....