Bc the strategy is all wrong. They need to give them homes to live in for free, no strings attached. There's ~600k homeless people in america. If the budget is $25B per year, that's 43k/person. No means tests just free apartments.
People who quote a number like $8B forget that proposed solutions to the problem can actually change the scope of the problem.
I'm sure that while the number of homeless might be 600K, the number of close-to-homeless is likely at least 10X that number.
It is actually a pretty bad thing for society how much people are paid to optimize ads and dark patterns for example - something that is absolutely of zero net benefit to society as a whole. I think there should be a tax on anyone working in ad-space.
But that's just one example - there are many other possible behavioral changes that can happen that will alter the cost computed up front even more (i.e. we're not even considering fraud with people applying for free housing and how much $ it will take to catch the fraud and deal with it).
I think we should advocate for solutions, as long as we keep in mind the true potential costs.
Possibly. But you need to address the fact that a lot of these folks need expensive medical assistance. That isn't just housing.
Somewhere around 15% of SF homeless have a traumatic brain injury. That's about 1 in 8 homeless who desperately need expensive medical assistance.
Single payer/medicare for all would have a larger impact on the homeless than mere housing or cash.