[yazaddaruvala]

FWIW, while buying them food I’ve met a few homeless people in Seattle.

What I learned from those conversations was that while “enough beds” exist and are provided, not enough of them are in “sober shelters” and it’s apparently very very hard to get into sober shelters.

Right now we talk about it all as “all housing is the same”. We probably need more housing for the homeless that exist for the ones who want/can’t help but to use, the ones who are validated as sober but also the ones who want to be sober but aren’t verified as sober yet. I’m sure all of these exist, but we definitely need to be a better job tracking those buckets differently, allocating resources better, and talking about them as separate things.

[abeyer]

You also pretty commonly hear the opposite, too, though -- that there are too many sobriety/no on premise consumption rules that people are unwilling or unable to comply with so won't even consider shelters assuming that to be the case.

I think you're right that tracking those better and better communication of what's available are both needed.