Most innovation in the homeless “housing” space has focused on relocation, both benevolent (trying to reconnect them with family members and friends willing to house them and get them off the street) and self-interested (without regard to the well-being of the individual, just focused on getting them on a bus going somewhere far away).

When it works, it’s actually a great boon for the individuals at question, as well as dramatically out-competes alternatives on price, as there’s a four orders of magnitude difference in price between the cost of buying and building housing and shelters, particularly in some of America’s most expensive and overzoned real-estate markets, versus buying them a ride home to somewhere they’re expected. [1]

That said, these programs have mixed results - sometimes great and life-changing, sometimes ruinsome due to poor vetting of the opposite side and being used as a high-pressure removal tactic [2] - but cities have broadly embraced doing it because in either case, it is effective at the political goal of moving one’s homeless problem somewhere else.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-homeless-bus-homew...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...