There are homeless because the flop houses and super cheap apartments (think ten to a bathroom) have been killed off by permitting and zoning laws. To solve homelessness you just need to make it legal to open up a for profit ten dollar a night mens dorm somewhere in a city. Hitler lived in one for a couple years.
As it is the shelters are all government run and sane homeless people avoid them because of rampant drugs and sexual abuse.
I've stayed in $30/night hostels in New York City. I don't see many places they could've cut costs and still provided a safe, sanitary place to sleep, and there are still homeless people in New York City.
$30/night is roughly $11000 a year, which is almost 3 times more than I pay in Pittsburgh for my share of a nice house. If there really is no way to cut those costs in NYC, the answer is to get out of NYC.
Just as Silicon Valley can be a good idea for a lean startup, Manhattan can be a good idea for the top tier of homeless person: The creativity, variety, and drive of the panhandling there is many levels above what you'll see elsewhere.
...I'm not sure where I was going with that, but even at $10/night that's the same you're paying in Pittsburgh.
The logic is that people who can only afford 1/10 of a standard dwelling are better off living in a doorway and carrying all their stuff with them everywhere they go with no permanent address, instead of having 100 square feet to call their own. The benefits of learning to always be on guard outweigh the laziness that being able to lock a door causes people to develop.
Am I supposed to cite Godwins Law now? (Just kidding... )
There are many cities where these permitting and zoning laws work as a subsidy for wealthy people. For instance, they do not want walmart and they do not want more apartments built in my town (which is a very liberal university town) because they want to "preserve its character"... but they go way overboard.
The effect of this is that home prices go up significantly and they profit when they sell.
This seems to be common among towns up and down the west coast. I've seen it in California, Oregon and Washington.
Artificial constraint on the supply of homes means more homelessness, but also, more returns for homeowners there.
So, they have a financial incentive to vote to prevent these apartments from being built.
And I'm talking $600-$1,000 a month apartments, not even cheap housing.
The problem is that in aggregate terms, the more cheap housing you have in an area, the more crime, violence, graffiti and litter you're going to have.
Not because all persons who live in such places are always and inherently bad, but because a much larger percentage of the people who can only afford such places do have certain cultural, behavioral and educational qualities that cause them to breed such things. You enable the Ramen-eating college student to live there, but also the basket case. The struggling artist but also the drug-dealer or gang member. The single guy living alone for the first time with an apartment full of books, but also the extended family of 10 immigrants with 5 kids and varying degree of legality, all of whom who will be consuming government services and imposing government costs and externalities out of proportion to their taxable income contributions back. Having a town where the prices are so high only doctors and lawyers can afford to live might mean there's less diversity, but also the streets and lawns will be nice and safe and quiet, speaking in general. Given a choice only between these two imperfect extremes I know I'd take the second one.
As it is the shelters are all government run and sane homeless people avoid them because of rampant drugs and sexual abuse.