I'm sympathetic to the argument you're making, but temper that position with the knowledge that the rates of homelessness aren't the same everywhere -- they're

I'm sympathetic to the argument you're making, but temper that position with the knowledge that the rates of homelessness aren't the same everywhere -- they're higher where housing is more expensive. Most things aren't monocausal. Drug addiction causes people to make bad choices that result in loss of employment and isolation from more stable friends and family. If that happens to you in a place where you and all your addict buddies can pile into a trailer on a plot of land nobody cares about, then you won't be homeless. If it happens to you in the middle of a high-COL city like San Francisco, then you might find yourself on the street. Does that mean "high housing prices" put you on the street or was it the result of your addiction? Surely it's both, in some sense.