[jbdistaken]

>many Americans believe street homelessness is due to poverty. It's obviously not. I've seen street homelessness due to poverty in the country my parents left, and it looks nothing like what's going on in America.

can you please elaborate on discerning different types of poverty based on causes? This sounds like something I should understand

[2muchcoffeeman]

Not the US, but anecdotally, I've heard the main cause of homelessness in Australia is not being poor. Generally there is some mental health component that prevents people from getting help. Yet more anecdotally, I'm 2 degrees away from a few people who have been homeless and it was fairly easy to get back on their feet.

But the comments on this are still pretty crazy and maybe miss the point. Even if the comparison isn't quite exact, wouldn't you expect the worlds richest country to do the best? Even the life expectancy is declining in the US. And even if COVID had an impact on life expectancy, again world's richest country.