What GP said is it stands up "to zero scrutiny." That is an absolutely absurd claim. There is a mountain of evidence pointing to exactly this. Sure, correlatio

What GP said is it stands up "to zero scrutiny." That is an absolutely absurd claim. There is a mountain of evidence pointing to exactly this. Sure, correlation vs causation blah blah. This correlation persists even when controlling for most other variables people can think of: > A large body of academic research has consistently found that homelessness in an area is driven by housing costs, whether expressed in terms of rents, rent-to-income ratios, price-to-income ratios, or home prices. Further, changes in rents precipitate changes in rates of homelessness: homelessness increases when rents rise by amounts that low-income households cannot afford. Similarly, interventions to address housing costs by providing housing directly or through subsidies have been effective in reducing homelessness. That makes sense if housing costs are the main driver of homelessness, but not if other reasons are to blame. Studies show that other factors have a much smaller impact on homelessness. > Much of the research looks at the variation in homelessness among geographies and finds that housing costs explain far more of the difference in rates of homelessness than variables such as substance use disorder, mental health, weather, the strength of the social safety net, poverty, or economic conditions. Some vulnerabilities strongly influence which people are susceptible to homelessness, but research has repeatedly concluded that these factors play only a minor role in driving rates of homelessness compared with the role of housing costs. A platitude about correlation vs causation is downplaying what we know about this specific situation.