I think the core physical concerns could be addressed (in a different dialog).
Disclaimer: I've been homeless (never on the streets) and my mother died on the streets of SF.
The bigger concern is where do you park these people? The first qualifier that comes into play is: is the homeless person temporarily distressed or are they "broken" for life. In the disclaimer I gave I was of the former category and my mother was among the latter.
So this solution is meant for the latter group -- the ones who are never going to "contribute to society" again. This qualifier isn't meant to punish or demean, but to recognize that it's not necessarily cruel to move these people to remote locations (where land is cheap). But to do so humanely requires that the housing be better than tarp on a cyclone fence and affordable.
I still think cardboard could be repurposed in a safe and economical manner to aid in providing this shelter. Just like nobody would build a house how of wood without providing environmental protection this would do so as well.
Creating such homesteads would be far more cost efficient than the current efforts to sweep homelessness under the carpet.
The more intriguing question is: if one could create "free" communities such as these how would abuse of same be minimized? That is, ensuring that only the truly needy be admitted. And more interestingly, how could one establish communities like this that "bad people" don't "take over" the complex.
I'm stupidly hopeful enough to believe that these are problems that have satisfactory answers but I don't have them at the moment.
Current regulations effectively forbid to build horrible ugly high-rises that can house 50,000 people in each. Currently, it is only profitable to build luxury houses that nobody can afford.
However, the horrible ugly high-rise has the only one advantage: it is cheap, and everyone can afford it. Even a homeless guy that manage to found a crappy -paying job through his heroic effort.
I only see one way to end homelessness: make housing 20x cheaper than it is now. And that would not be possible without cancelling all housing regulations.
> As we all know, N_homeless = N_people - N_homes.
This is not even close to true. It’s regularly recognized that for many people, homelessness is rooted in disabilities, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, or other problems that hurt their ability to keep and maintain a home even if they had one.
It’s not at all a pure supply issue, although supply plays a big role in certain geographic areas. It’s a complex problem.
Keep in mind that even if you own a home, maintenance, utilities, and taxes are expensive.
I have to insist the formula is still correct in principle. Yes, there are many causes for homelessness. However, shall you magically fix all the problems you named, some people will have to remain on the streets if N_people > N_homes.
Once N_people < N_homes, only then it is possible to fix the rest of the problems efficiently.
Regarding substance abuse for example: Shall I happen to lose my home, I would have to use the named substances to soothe a terrible shame and misery associated with my new status. I could only think of fighting my harmful addictions if I can see the way out. Currently though, with number of houses almost constant, if you manage to pull a homeless person out of the streets, there will be another person priced out of their home.
Disclaimer: I've been homeless (never on the streets) and my mother died on the streets of SF.
The bigger concern is where do you park these people? The first qualifier that comes into play is: is the homeless person temporarily distressed or are they "broken" for life. In the disclaimer I gave I was of the former category and my mother was among the latter.
So this solution is meant for the latter group -- the ones who are never going to "contribute to society" again. This qualifier isn't meant to punish or demean, but to recognize that it's not necessarily cruel to move these people to remote locations (where land is cheap). But to do so humanely requires that the housing be better than tarp on a cyclone fence and affordable.
I still think cardboard could be repurposed in a safe and economical manner to aid in providing this shelter. Just like nobody would build a house how of wood without providing environmental protection this would do so as well.
Creating such homesteads would be far more cost efficient than the current efforts to sweep homelessness under the carpet.
The more intriguing question is: if one could create "free" communities such as these how would abuse of same be minimized? That is, ensuring that only the truly needy be admitted. And more interestingly, how could one establish communities like this that "bad people" don't "take over" the complex.
I'm stupidly hopeful enough to believe that these are problems that have satisfactory answers but I don't have them at the moment.