I've worked with a group that tried to allow houseless people to camp on their property. The main thing most people are looking for when homeless is safety. The most common story I hear when talking to houseless people is the "woman who just escaped an abusive relationship" story. Others have dear pets or are even pregnant. The place was literally just a parking lot but it felt safe and that meant a lot to a lot of people.
The city labelled it a campground and said it was illegal. We worked out a contract with the city to let us slowly move people and try to find somewhere else for each individual instead of violently kicking everyone out all at once. Despite the contract, cops tried showing up at 5am or other weird hours on multiple occasions to kick everyone out. One of us always had to be on call because the only thing that stopped them was housed people with cameras filming them doing illegal actions. Eventually they got through though and most people lost a lot of their belongings. Even IDs and wallets were taken making it impossible for folks to access other possible services
A service like this geared towards houseless people would certainly mean a lot but if it existed (and wanted to continue existing) it could not be this public. Some cities are better than others (Santa Clara has "safe parking places" e.g. but it's only a few dozen spots) but many of our laws (e.g. why a campground costs many thousands more in taxes to run than a motel) are specifically structured to prevent networks like that
The city labelled it a campground and said it was illegal. We worked out a contract with the city to let us slowly move people and try to find somewhere else for each individual instead of violently kicking everyone out all at once. Despite the contract, cops tried showing up at 5am or other weird hours on multiple occasions to kick everyone out. One of us always had to be on call because the only thing that stopped them was housed people with cameras filming them doing illegal actions. Eventually they got through though and most people lost a lot of their belongings. Even IDs and wallets were taken making it impossible for folks to access other possible services
A service like this geared towards houseless people would certainly mean a lot but if it existed (and wanted to continue existing) it could not be this public. Some cities are better than others (Santa Clara has "safe parking places" e.g. but it's only a few dozen spots) but many of our laws (e.g. why a campground costs many thousands more in taxes to run than a motel) are specifically structured to prevent networks like that