All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation.Google can point you to several other studies. The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" basically could best broken down as "the correlation of two graphs doesn't mean much unless you have a decent model to explain why they're correlated". But in this case, we have a good model for high rents causing homelessness - people become homeless when they lose homes and can't find another house or apartment. High rents make this more likely - high rents also make it harder for someone who's working to "couch surf" until they find another place.
Being a functional, short-term homeless person makes latent substance abuse and mental illness issues more likely to appear and intensifying existing ones - sleep deprivation is a major factor. The relationship between sleep deprivation and many such problems has been studied in depth.
In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics.
That's a pretty weird statement. Obviously, I'm politically to the left and believe that society in general and highly destructive social policies, in total is responsible for homelessness in aggregate but see below.
I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion?
My default reaction to homelessness is generally an effort to step-in and help.
I've spent thousands of dollars of my own money helping individual friends avoid homelessness (sometimes successfully, sometimes not so), I've distributed food at soup kitchens and I've protested the eviction of homeless camps. I give money directly to homeless people when I can. I've know others involved in social services. Oh, and I've been homeless for moderate periods.
Your statements seem to imply that seeing homelessness as political negates efforts to help - but instead, my individual efforts to help give me the strong impression this problem larger than my personal ability to solve, hence it is a problem of society, a political problem in the sense of how do we run our society (assuming, maybe mistakenly, some "we" exists today). I think most people involved in homeless services feel also feel this problem requires more than just the intervention of charity.
I understand that some people are so wholly dysfunctional that they aren't going to easily join society when offered a minimum wage job or even, necessarily, an ordinary apartment - mean, my original post mentioning broken people is what started this off, right? That doesn't change the way that social conditions are a large part of what creates this society.
Of those groups involved in interacting with homeless, your attitude seems closest to that of the police and others in the "justice" system who constantly claim far greater knowledge of the conditions of the homeless than all others but who's views tend be twisted, cruel and malicious through their impulse justify society's brutal dictates towards the homeless. Plus unsupported by any objective studies. "You don't really know what these people are like" is the common rhetoric.
I would mention that law enforcement sees the dysfunctional homeless primarily because anyone functional and homeless stays as far as practical away from law enforcement and any homeless service that aims to control people (ie, lots of shelters, etc).