Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's some merit to this but I'd say it's still a little off the mark. Homelessness is a condition, how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing. Dealing with everything else (mental health issues, drug addiction, etc.) can be dealt with separately, and will be vastly easier without having the fundamental problem of homelessness.
how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing The solution sounds straightforward, the path to get there looks like a Gordian knot. How do you pay for it? How do you get that funding source to go along with your plans to pay for it? Etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First
> In August 2007, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that the number of chronically homeless individuals living on the streets or in shelters dropped by an unprecedented 30 percent, from 175,914 people in 2005 to 123,833 in 2007. This was credited in part to the "housing first" approach; Congress in 1999 directed that HUD spend 30% of its funding on the method.
The page is full of more success stories like that. If it's so impossible, why is it already being done all over the world?
> Studies in New York City and in Utah have shown that every homeless person housed in programs such as Housing First saves taxpayers $10,000 and $8,000 a year, respectively. A research study at University of Northern Carolina also reported that a housing project for the chronically homeless called Moore Place had saved the county $2.4 million.
Yet it "seems like a Gordion knot" because how would we pay for it... that's the answer, you don't pay, you save money. So if the problem is how some people feel about something, because they haven't informed themselves, then they should feel something else, problem solved.