And the flip side of the coin is that the government needs to be willing to provide services, presumably because the government sees a correlation between choos

And the flip side of the coin is that the government needs to be willing to provide services, presumably because the government sees a correlation between choosing to help yourself, subsequently finding a resource that can help, using that resource to get help, and finally being helped and back on your feet, where the cost to provide sufficient help is less than the opportunity cost of having another person on the skids. Everywhere has homeless. But places that offer little help have a lot more.