If you get cancer it won't mean you'll have so many bills you'll have to live outside. If you have disability, mental or otherwise, it doesn't mean you'll have to rely on the generosity of your family to be able to survive. And if you do sleep outside the police will likely make you not is my understanding.
After renting for two years I was evicted with a 2-month notice for what was essentially a simple disagreement with the landlord. They didn't even attempt to resolve it: they just evicted me.
It took me over half a year to get half of my £1 100 deposit back; they initially tried to charge me £1 400, mostly for bullshit general maintenance and/or lying about either the initial state – even though it was unambiguously stated in the original inventory – or agreements we had made about the checkout condition (I asked if I had to fix a few minor issues, they said no, and then charged me anyway). About £100 was reasonable, the rest wasn't.
My point here is, all of this would be highly illegal in the Netherlands. You can't just evict people because you feel like it, and you can't just send a bill well over a month later for all sorts of items (or maybe you can, but it's certainly not common[1]). It's not hard to imagine how I could have ended up homeless if I had been more vulnerable – for example by actually needing that £1 100 deposit for a new deposit, or suffering from depression or other mental illness, etc.
I think homelessness is a complex problem, and dealing with people after they become homeless is a only a part of it. This is not very scientific, but in general, I've observed that homelessness is correlated with the amount of empathy in a society, which is something that affects many laws and attitudes.
[1]: A little footnote: technically also not legal in the UK, but they interpret "notify about deductions within 10 days" as "send standard form letter that there may be some deductions within 10 days", which is obviously not the same. But ... what can you do about stuff like this as a tenant, right? I might have considered the small claims court, but have since left the UK as I was fed up. Even "notify within 10 days" is already very strange, as this means they have all the time to collect all the evidence, while robbing me the chance of actually giving any sort of counter-argument. In NL, it's always been arranged at the checkout, with both parties present.
That said, I also never rented in a major city. Mostly during college in a small city, and while most students were a bit clueless, their mostly middle-class parents were not. Then a few homes after college, but again, in a wealthy suburb where tenants typically had the means to enforce their rights via the courts.
The dispute service of the deposit protection services are completely useless as well. They took over 4 months to reply, didn't address half the stuff I had sent in, had no way to see what the landlord sent in, and made some spectacularly wrong decisions. The entire thing felt like it was rushed by an intern.
I think the problem is that as a landlord/rental agent you have a lot of power, especially in a high-demand market (I lived in Bristol). My apartment was listed as "let agreed" just 4 days after I left for £75/month more. Power corrupts.
Were you actually evicted, or did your lease simply expire without an option to renew? Because even here in the US, it's very hard to impossible to evict someone who has a lease and is still paying rent and isn't flagrantly violating laws or destroying the dwelling.
Details: https://www.gov.uk/tenancy-agreements-a-guide-for-landlords/... – tl;dr is that after 6 months you can just end the tenancy agreement with a 2 month notice.
Assured shorthold tenancies are pretty much the standard; you don't have a lot of choice. Either sign a contract like this, or don't have a house to live in :-/
The entire thing is seriously fucked up if you ask me, because at the slightest hint of being "difficult" (e.g. because you demand they actually fix things, or because you object when they act like assholes) you just get evicted :-/
A lot of this comes down to the municipalities though, which recently clashed with national politics on the subject of shelter for rejected immigrants. Some municipalities (including mine) wanted to provide bed bath and bread to these people. On a national level, the policy was to force these people to leave the country, as they were here illegally.
I imagine some of the more christian rural municipalities have a much harsher approach towards homeless people. It's probably effective as well, insofar as it pushes the homeless people out.
There has been a bit of an issue with what the police calls 'confused people'. These are the people with psychiatric issues that are a burden to people around them, but not enough to warrant forced institutionalization. Instead, every time something boils over, the police have to be called. It is very hard to get some of these people evicted, even when they routinely tear up their house and bother neighbors to the point of police involvement.
This is not a homeless issue though. Just one of psychiatric care.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...
Perhaps they are well-hidden?