IMO a one-size-fits all approach is doomed to faiil. It is very good that states and local communities are trying out different approaches.
To take advantage of experiments, though, there must be sharing of information and ongoing evaluations.

Unfortunatley, when something seems to be working, everyone turns their backs and assumes it will always work and will work in every situation. In the meantime, the homeless demographics change, the administrators become complacent, and people start yelling about wasted money and effort.

Most politicians just give lip service. When has any current candidate addressed our rising crime rates for example?

Crime rates, poverty levels, homelessness, lack of health care – all get swept under the rug.
As an amateur prophet, I see our society rotting from within, much in the manner of the USSR.

Nobody sees investing in people as a profitable undertaking. Yet, the return in savings and productiviy is immense.

There are children among the homeless. We can choose to invest in their futures now and reap the benefits of having them as productive citizens or we can save pennies now by ignoring them and pay big bucks for new prisons, more police, more mental health and rehab facilities later.

First, while the study in Colorado did confirm the findings that about half the homeless do have some form of disability, including mental illness, substance addiction or physical problems that is only a portion of the problem. Low wages coupled with a precarious economic situation (Do I pay fix my car and keep my job? Or do I pay the rent and hope for a new job?) Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed describes this situation perfectly.

But the first realisation that the problems involved with homelessness aren’t as easy to solve a simply setting up soup kitchens came in the late 1980’s when a graduate student realised than many homeless aren’t the chronic substance abusers most people see on the street but people who lose jobs or have domestic problems. Most are very short term shelter users and are only homeless once in their life. A dramatic example of an intelligent well educated woman living in her car because events outran her ability to cope can be found here.

One of the problems with approaching homelessness has been to use a water can approach to funding, placing money in shelters and feeding programs without really looking at whether those approaches worked. Recent research has shown that almost all the costs incurred in homelessness are caused by the chronically homeless – only 10 percent of the people on the streets.

That is why cities like Denver and New York are looking at programs giving apartments, for free – forever, no strings attached to those with problems. The idea seems to be working. Although there are problems, apartments getting trashed, the people moving on anyway, the idea seems to be working. It is far easier to help keep people medicated and into substance abuse programs once they are settled then the other way around.

I wrote a much longer post about this a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately giving away housing for free has a tendency to really irritate the right wing – “Why are these people getting something for nothing� policy makers. The answer is simple. It’s cheaper.

For those who don’t require that kind of care would it be possible to investigate a way to build a new kind of shelter that would resemble college dorms as much as anything else with larger rooms for families? Something that could hopefully be built in a cost effective manner but still be quality construction to not degenerate quickly into a ruin? Or is that too much to hope for?

Here’s a link to a recent story of a real estate developer giving away homes to some homeless family in Hawaii. Genshiro Kawamoto gift. The article is most interesting, however, as a description of typical homeless families in Hawaii.

The point is simply that people end up in the streets for a lot of different reasons.

I’m quite sure something could be done if the will was there. The problem has been that today’s prevailing wisdom has been the “Horatio Alger” philosophy, with private charitable organizations taking up the load, while too many fall through the cracks. The culture of corporate greed and tabloid exhibitionism doesn’t say too much about us as a society, now does it?

All that notwithstanding, we just have to keep plugging away.

And we have to do better.

Lynx- yes they do!

The homeless are a very varied group and need different services.

Marlowecan makes some excellent points.

No matter how well-intentioned, any facility for the homeless will have an institutional framework. As we were also trying to provide services to facilitate these people’s reintegration into society, regimentation becomes necessary to reach them. Then regimentation itself becomes a problem.
It’s a really tough balancing act.

But one thing is for sure.
We can’t just ignore them.
How can we be the rich country that we boast of being and not pay attention to his problem?

Another factor is addiction, which can combine with the mental illness.

It’s not enough to give beds and hot food. No one who has their head about them wants to live in the streets, but while institutions are the hellholes they are, people will escape to the streets.

Often the decision to be on the street, as opposed to in a shelter, is a highly rational choice. Shelters are often notoriously violent and insecure environments. One can go to sleep, and not know if one will still have one’s stuff in the morning, even if one is sleeping on top of it.
This is a big reason many homeless resist shelter existence. One can hide on the street…especially in parks. Often this is dangerous…but one is not exposed and visible as in a shelter.

Another reason is agency. We all want to be in control of our lives…yes, even the homeless feel the desire for dignity and independence. In the city in which I currently live, a small shantytown developed near a downtown expressway…on land that was owned by a big box company that did not choose to develop it for some years. The homeless people had built shacks, and had various forms of homes and communal arrangements. There they were free. No welfare or social worker coming by semi-daily to make sure one didn’t have a partner living with one (against the rules).

Eventually, the big box store decided to develop, and the police moved in with tractors and bulldozed the community…”for their own good” in the view of the inspecting social workers. Most took their dogs and the stuff they could carry, and found a place in parks, or in an alley.

Our societies can do much better. The question of “why they don’t” is an interesting one. Why don’t shelters have lockers to place valuables? This would be inexpensive. Is there a view that the homeless do not have valuables?

So I would disagree. There is a choice…and between homelessness and the “help” offered by society, many rationally choose homelessness.