I actually can hand wave it away. I spent nearly six years homeless, I've had a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy and I've written about homeless

I actually can hand wave it away. I spent nearly six years homeless, I've had a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy and I've written about homelessness for years. Being homeless and socially cut off is hard on your mental health. It's not always obvious which direction cause and effect runs. Plenty of people have serious mental health issues and manage to largely hide it if they can remain housed, on any pertinent medication, etc. There is no direct cause and effect relationship between mental health and homelessness or drug use and homelessness. Instead, studies show that increased rates of homelessness are more than 90 percent accounted for by rising rents in an area.