It's true that it costs some money to maintain this kind of thing, but it costs a lot of money to maintain the current solutions, so the bar to beat is not exac

It's true that it costs some money to maintain this kind of thing, but it costs a lot of money to maintain the current solutions, so the bar to beat is not exactly low. The current solutions for housing long-term homeless include, in varying proportions, such expensive facilities as: jail cells, hospital rooms, 72-hour holds in psychiatric facilities, and homeless shelters. My own guess is that Americans don't actually care about the cost, but are extremely paranoid that someone is getting something they feel they don't deserve. If someone is locked up in a prison cell for 5x the cost of renting them an apartment, then that's fine, because at least you know they were "punished" for spending the taxpayers' money, not getting something subjectively nice.