Just like giving homeless people food is just handouts to farmers.
> targeting already-residential neighborhoods instead of mandating the redevelopment of blighted formerly-industrial and -commercial areas and dying malls with boarded-up Macy's and Fry's.
No neighborhood should ever allowed to be only restricted single family home. There is absolutely no justification for that what so ever.
Things like four-plex are the very minimum that should be allowed.
In addition to that you should also rearrange the tax and fee structures. The reality is, single family homes never actual pay their own way. They are a subsidy from the poor to the rich. Single family homes should pay more taxes and more fees.
And in addition to that, you shouldn't allow housing only zones, no zone should be without low-impact commercial. In Japans system, there is no purely housing zone for example.
But you are also correct that there is far to much commercially zoned. All commercial zones should be approved for mixed use zoning.
> "The ensuing housing shortage caused mass homelessness." What a crock. That doesn't even make sense.
They are called homeless. Not enough people have housing. But I'm sure actual houses have nothing to do with it.