People who live on the streets do so for a variety of reasons. So I’d like to hear a variety of solutions.
What to do for the poverty-induced unhoused?
What to do for the mental health-induced unhoused?
What to do for the free-spirit unhoused?
What to do for the runaway teen unhoused?
Other causes of homelessness?
the problem in the US is that there is no way to address the issue while continuing to function with the current political and cultural paradigm.
the combination of "blame the victim" mentality about the homeless, and the archaic prudishness of the US attitude about drugs, about social sustainability, about an individual's obligation to be self sufficient in an environment where that is neither physically required nor (often) possible, and the systemic gross mismanagement of available resources are all factors in the homeless problem.
as easy as it is to say "just build them all homes", and for as much as i support that idea, it will treat the symptom but not the cause.
if you built enough housing across the US to give a home to every homeless, that would only solve the problem for until there was another huge population of homeless.
the current homeless population doesn't breed more homeless people, it's not like the homeless are replicated from others - 100% of all homeless people are formerly homed. you could say that something went wildly wrong in their lives which lead them to become homeless, but IMO the fact that homelessness is even an option is the real wrong... there shouldn't *be* a path that leads to being homeless in the US, that shouldn't be a physical possibility.
the sad truth is that homelessness in the US is a systemic cultural problem that will never be solved with the way society works right now, so the most that can ever be done is expending time and effort to try to help ease their suffering - basically just a humanitarian approach so that people can pat themselves on the back over how good they are to others.
we need to radically change our cultural attitudes towards several things, as well as institute policies and safety nets into the fabric of our society, in order to truly address the issue of homelessness in any realistic way.
or, alternately... hobodome.
we make a big concrete pit in several major cities, round up all the hobos and bulldoze them into it.
we fill it with broken bottles and metal pipes and bags of meth until one person is left and declared King of the Hobos, and then shoot that person in the head on national television.
i guess either thing would pretty much take care of the problem.