I do volunteer work for a couple homeless orgs in Toronto. The common misconception is “you can’t solve homelessness because they’re all addicts or crazy” and that’s simply not true. First and foremost the addicts and the mentally ill are the last groups that are going to seek out assistance. Food lines for example are generally going to be vacant of both those groups. but said lines are still massive.
Next you have the fact that the vast majority of the mentally ill don’t even know they’re homeless. This is another thing that is rarely if ever acknowledged. You can try to talk to these people and in most cases they say they have a home, that they’re housed, and they’re just “out and about” right now. With the addicts it’s just fix to fix. that’s all they are concerned about. Neither group will ask for help because as previously stated A. they believe they’re not homeless or B. they’re just looking for the next fix. When approached and actually offered help they will generally accept it, it’s just that no one has reached out and told them where to go for said help.
There’s also that misconception that they will refuse to live by the rules imposed on them. this is make belief and I’ve never come across any place that has “rules” preventing someone from doing something. It’s also a false narrative that shelters bar drug use. this isn’t true at all. Shelters will provide safe consumption areas for users and try to provide said user with help.
In most cases the homeless population, currently, consists of the elderly, women escaping domestic abuse, middle age single women who have lost their primary source of income, LGBTQ+ youth, the physically disabled, or simply people who lost their jobs. the most shocking uptick are middle age women. it’s REALLY bad for that right now. So can homelessness be solved for these people listed? 100% and doing so you’d see a massive reduction of people sleeping outside in your average city. A homes first initiative with needs based assistance can work. in 2013 a study in Toronto was shown that the city spends on average 75K a year PER homeless individual. this included shelter costs, medical, and other resources. that’s 75K per person in YOUR tax dollars that went towards not solving anything. Providing housing + assistance would be massively cheaper in the long run.
The primary barrier to solving this aren’t the people sleeping rough. It’s the people with roofs over their heads who simply don’t want to pay for it and feel these people are getting handouts. that’s it.
If the US tried it Canada would make Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc look like a casual sunday stroll in the park. If the US couldn’t handle Guerrilla warfare against people who DON’T look like them, imagine how well they’ll do against people that do. And the further north they got the more fucked they’d be. Ever been in a fight with a pissed off Indigenous individual? try it, see how far you get. Not only that you got all the dudes living in the bush with rifles and god knows what else.