I'm not sure what your experience is. To your 2nd point, I googled "homelessness studies" and here's some stuff I found: The bulk of homelessness is a housing

I'm not sure what your experience is. To your 2nd point, I googled "homelessness studies" and here's some stuff I found: The bulk of homelessness is a housing problem [0]. Per-capita rates are the highest in the most expensive places to live. This isn't because homeless people migrate to the places w/ the best homelessness programs either: they're largely long-term residents of their cities [1]. Homelessness is increasing because incomes are not keeping up with housing costs [2]. Since 2001 incomes have increased 4%, while rents have increased 19%. While severe illness can lead to homelessness, it also works the other way around [3]. There are many homeless families, often headed by women but many are also "intact" families [4]. People of color are also dramatically overrepresented: Black Americans are 13% of the population but 40% of the homeless [5]. It's hard to imagine Black Americans are 3x more likely to have severe mental illness or addiction problems. I think it's pretty conclusively a housing cost problem. Maybe not entirely, maybe not everywhere, but it does seem like we'd take care of most of the problem in most places by bringing down housing costs. (n.b. the NIH book source is from 1988, but I found most of its basic findings were corroborated by more recent sources) [0]: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218239/#ddd00010:~:text=Length%20of%20Residency%20of%20Homeless%20Adult%20Individuals https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218239/#ddd00010:~:tex.... [2]: https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/ https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/ [3]: https://community.solutions/research-posts/the-costs-and-harms-of-homelessness/#:~:text=homelessness%20across%20domains.-,Health%20and%20Wellbeing,-A%20substantial%20body https://community.solutions/research-posts/the-costs-and-har... [4]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218239/#ddd00010:~:text=and%20being%20evicted.-,Homeless%20Families,-As%20mentioned%20previously https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218239/#ddd00010:~:tex... [5]: https://endhomelessness.org/resources/sharable-graphics/racial-inequalities-homelessness-numbers/ https://endhomelessness.org/resources/sharable-graphics/raci...