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Sure, that's why I made sure I mentioned the autonomy bit.  It's a big deal and shelters require some things many can't/won't live up to.  I understand having those prereqs, but then we have many out on the streets.

The problem is that we generally have two groups of homeless:

• Those who are temporarily homeless due to situations (job loss / etc) getting out of their control. 
• Those who are chronically homeless due to mental health / substance abuse / etc issues. 

The first group IMHO tend to do well with shelters. They need a place to get on their feet, have a place to sleep at night and shower in the morning, maybe give them food, that help them get back into society. 

The second group doesn't want to be at the shelters and are ALSO not the type that will avail themselves of any free government housing that requires any prereqs. Those folks are going to chronically be on the streets. I don't know that a gov't program exists that can help them. 

The land cost thing is very true, and would require some gov't owned parcels to be for free housing, which anyone adjacent to it would hate, and understandably so.

Okay. So the gov't is going to own some parcels. Where? How do they get them? Open market purchases or eminent domain? Because in populated areas there isn't a ton of just free unused land...

The really-nice areas who require a servant class (ie - landscapers etc) don't want their land values to decrease, so maybe they pay for transportation?  Maybe they pay for cheap parcels of land and transportation, keeping the worker bees at a precious arm's length.

Today people have a lot of other ways of getting around this. Although I just posted about a burned-out empty lot in my neighborhood going for $588K, I don't live in a "really-nice" area. It's a 50 year old subdivision where a lot of the people who live here are working-class who happened to buy either before the subprime bubble or during its bursting--and probably some before that. One of the common things in our neighborhood is garage sales... And it's the same 6 houses or so that are doing garage sales on a monthly-ish basis. IMHO this is a Goodwill/garage sale arbitrage thing where folks are making extra cash buying things artificially cheap in more ritzy neighborhoods, and then reselling them closer to their actual worth. 

So we get "servant class" folks here. Our family across the street partially makes ends meet by renting out rooms. One of their former tenants--really nice guy--was a landscaper. He eventually moved out because his situation improved, but they rented the same room out. We're a good neighborhood where people look out for each other. When that landscaper left, he offered us some jasmine trees he wasn't able to take with him. When we were replacing our Traeger grill with a Blackstone griddle, we gave the owner of the house the Traeger because we'd rather it go to a good home than try to just sell it. Most recently, I found a wallet on the ground in front of my driveway and checked with them to see if it was their tenant [it was], so he had it returned to him. 

As I mentioned, the issue is density. And when there isn't enough density--people make it. While ADUs would be a help, in many cases, such as my neighborhood, they make up for density by putting probably a few more people in a house than it really fits...

Idk.  I just view needs as basic human rights in this time and place.  We're not talking about Yemen here.  The US in 2025 can work this problem.  We need ideas and trials.  They're not all going to work, but I've got to believe some are better that what we have now.

But the problem with housing is that it's complex. There's nobody in the US who just wants "housing". They want housing with certain attributes that meet their family's needs. They want housing that is within a certain distance from their job. Often in many cases they make tradeoffs on those two--they'll live farther from work to have a bigger / more well-appointed house. Others, like me, could move to a different area and buy a house instead of rent--but is stuck where I live because I refuse to move that far away from my kids, and don't want to be just a "summer dad", so I have to be close enough to them and to the ex who is only capable of living where she lives because of my child support and alimony payments. 

"Housing" might be a basic human need/right. Which is why I asked the question of how do you see this working? Because it's REALLY damn complicated. It's not quite the same as healthcare or food. Those are complicated issues, but compared to housing, it's trivially simple. 

I'm not interested in a debate over a universal basic income, but IMHO that's an easier solution to this problem than trying to figure out how to turn the housing market from an economic supply/demand market into something that's governmentally guaranteed. 

I'm not gonna delve into philosophical debate, other than to say, it's interesting that there isn't much of a right to not have housing. 

Haven't the foggiest what to do with that, but suppose it's interesting in a way. 

I was quite interested to note quite a few "homeless encampments" in Vancouver, BC.  My daughter said they had a lot of them around, more than I saw.

It's obviously a complex problem with no clear solutions that are viable.  Just throwing money at it hasn't worked very well.

As noted above, there are different kinds of people who find them self "unhoused".  I've looked into this in some detail, as well as I can here, as I'd like to help.  Some folks prefer being "unhoused", a surprising number, they don't want a job or the "rat race", they have always been around, called hobos and whatnot.  A fair number of mentally ill and/or drug addicted and don't know where they are.  We can't take mentally ill people off the street legally unless they are a threat.  I see both kinds around here fairly often (fortunately they don't bother me directly).

The third major kind is usually a woman who had to escape an abusive situation, they end up in a car or a homeless shelter.  I'm told here the shelters very often are half full unless the weather is very bad.  I contribute to two of them locally.  They are a partial answer but cannot address the other issues at all.

Some people are "out of it" and abandoned by their families and left to wonder about.  There is no apparent "fix" for them.  

Incidentally, I'd like to understand more about the experiment with drug "legalization" in Portugal, I've read such differing accounts, it's either a glorious success or huge issue, but no other western country has followed.  Our drug problem is pretty severe obviously.

Some folks prefer being "unhoused", a surprising number, they don't want a job or the "rat race", they have always been around, called hobos and whatnot.  A fair number of mentally ill and/or drug addicted and don't know where they are.  We can't take mentally ill people off the street legally unless they are a threat.  

wondering what caused the numbers to increase so much.........

is the society just soft or the stress so much more that many more are bailing out of the rat race?
more drug addiction than ever?  The courts decided we can't take mentally ill off the streets and the jails are full so the drug addicts aren't prosecuted?  

There was a Supreme Court decision ca. 1977 or so that strictly limited how folks could be "incarcerated" in a mental institution.  The criteria are clear threat to self or others.  So, the police or others cannot legally take someone off the street if they pose no apparent threat.  It's one's "right" to be homeless obviously.

wondering what caused the numbers to increase so much.........

is the society just soft or the stress so much more that many more are bailing out of the rat race?
more drug addiction than ever?  The courts decided we can't take mentally ill off the streets and the jails are full so the drug addicts aren't prosecuted? 

I would be interested if the numbers are worlds higher than they used to be, relative to the overall population. Or if they are just congregating in different ways that become a lot more apparent.

(I’d imagine some shifts in the kind of housing we have factor in there)