Homelessness is an inherently hard problem to solve. Programs to "help the homeless" tend to make the problem worse. If you need to be homeless to qualify for h

Homelessness is an inherently hard problem to solve. Programs to "help the homeless" tend to make the problem worse. If you need to be homeless to qualify for help, there are perverse incentives at work. We need a new housing model. Since World War II, average house size has increased, average household size (number of people in the home) has decreased. We fundamentally need a different form of housing than what is getting fostered by policies and financing mechanisms largely created as part of the process of solving the last housing crisis by inventing the modern suburb and blanketing the country with it. We now have a cartoonish 1950s single family home on steroids as our default expectation, thus the red queen effect. We have torn down a million single room occupancy units and expect as a default that single young adults in the city rent a bedroom in a 5 bedroom family home shared with unrelated single people in a living situation not designed for that. Then we make horror movies about room mates, like Single White Female, and pretend this is inevitable and not a consequence of policy decisions that actively discourage builders from building homes that work for singletons, students, seniors and single parents.