[lazyasciiart]

> The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That’s my take on your reasons for not allowing basic shelters, FWIW. We shouldn’t let “but it could have future negative effects!” be justification for having people dying of cancer sleep in doorways, or occasionally actually freeze to death on the literal street.

[lazyasciiart]

Also: we don’t even need to spend money on building the housing. We need to spend money to undo the thicket of NIMBY laws that ban increased density in many forms; ban cheap single rooming houses or even the modern “apodment” equivalent because people found it disgustingly poor to live in tiny units; ban the existence of rehabs or homeless shelters or supported housing for the mentally ill in residential areas, or the existence of sex offenders in any housing, because nobody wants those people near them…