Thing is, if you make a reasonable service available, "the vast majority of homeless people who are sleeping on mates' couches" will be competing for the same s

Thing is, if you make a reasonable service available, "the vast majority of homeless people who are sleeping on mates' couches" will be competing for the same spots with those who actually are sleeping on the streets otherwise. If some sort of safety net is available, then some people who'd otherwise find some solution to pay rent - whether it's going over their heads in payday loans or getting into petty crime or resorting to prostitution or some other way - some of them will choose to actually use that safety net instead. So the demand for that safety net if it's available should be expected to be larger than the number of people who "fell through" in the absence of it.