The city-by-city comparison I think is really the interesting metric. Homelessness is not equally distributed in America and I to my understanding European countries as well.
Paris: 150,000 (~8%) homeless people [1], total population: 2.161M (2019) [2]
Berlin: 30,000 (~1%) homeless people (with about 6k living in the street unsheltered) [2] , total population: 3.645 million (2019) [3]
Los Angeles: 75,000 (~2%) [4], total population: 3.822 million (2022)
New York: 350,000 (~4%) [5], total population: 8.336 million (2022)
San Francisco: 8,000 (~1%) [6], total population: 808,437 (2022)
San Luis Obispo: 1,175 (~2%) [7], total population: 48,341 (2022)
Rome: 8,000 (~0.2%) [8], total population: 2.873M (2017)
SF & LA are both well below NY & Paris, even as a rate; yet seemingly LA & SF have a worse reputational problem. I was told the big difference in NY vs West Coast is that NY has made a lot of shelter space and has a more functional shelter system. I suspect this is perhaps the big difference - adequate and a functional shelter system, rather than enforcement & sweeps. The two perhaps go hand-in-hand, sweeps are not effective if there is nowhere to go. If there are lots of shelters, a functioning shelter system, then sweeps conceivably have a chance to have a lasting (and positive) impact.
I'm having a tough time finding good counts of available shelter space.
Rome is for sure a standout. Trying to find shelter space counts there, there are lots of hits for things like "A new shelter for the homeless in the heart of Rome" [9]
I think overall there is evidence here to suggest it is more a functioning shelter system that has a bigger impact on homelessness compared to sweeps. What is more, there is evidence as well that homelessness rates are a function of both sweeps and the shelter system.
We're still also not getting into some other variables, like healthcare costs (a big driver for homelessness in the US, per my understanding), social safety nets, etc..
Overall, given this data, I don't think it is just a matter of enforcing sweeps/camping vs not. Do you still hold that opinion? If so, what function do you think shelters have in the equation? (The biggest problem with the data I presented is teasing out how much of that homeless population is sheltered vs unsheltered. It appears that places in Europe, like Berlin & Rome that have large shelter systems, fare the best. If it were a matter of just sweeps, then seemingly Paris would do much better than it does)
[1] https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/social-cleansing-to-make...
[2] https://www.german-times.com/with-the-us-as-a-role-model-ber...
[3] Google search: Berlin population
[4] https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/2024-greater-los-an...
[5] https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-ho...
[6] https://www.sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-populat...
[7] https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article289037219.ht...
[8] https://www.feantsa.org/download/it-proof-read-new-template1...
[9] https://www.orderofmalta.int/news/new-shelter-homeless-heart...