But instead follow people who are involved in policy decisions, social workers, psychologists, housing advocates etc. As you will get a more nuanced look at some of the issues.
Drug use and homelessness are two of the most complex problems in society to solve and usually require multi-faceted approaches across a wide array of disciplines to solve.
Homelessness is not a complex problem to substantially ameliorate: https://seliger.com/2022/06/29/homelessness-is-a-housing-pro.... Northern California has tried absolutely everything to reduce homelessness except building more housing: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en....
Places in London that built large scale apartment complexes for social housing saw them turned into slums with rampant drug use, violence and criminal activity.
And it can be harder to get smaller-medium density housing to work because you're constantly fighting against local governments and NIMBY types.
If building slums eliminates homelessness, that's a net win. No need to let "perfect" get in the way of "better".
...some places were just badly designed and encouraged the slum aspect (and associated problems).