@mcat2 I don’t not doubt that most homeless people would love to have a free, expenses-paid home. They might not sleep in it all the time, because many of them would continue to drink and pass out on the street on a regular basis, but I’m sure they would love to have a place to keep their stuff and sleep when they want to.
But the bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of the people living on the street are mentally ill and/or addicts or alcoholics. Giving them money that they can use to buy drugs or alcohol does them no service, and it certainly makes our public spaces far less livable. And it is not uncommon for panhandlers to have housing with a friend or relative; they are merely panhandling to fund a drug and party lifestyle. This type of fraud is the norm, not the exception.
We ought to strictly enforce laws against public drunkenness, at least insofar as people passed out drunk on the sidewalks, etc. A week in jail will at least give these people the opportunity to dry out. And we need to make it easier for family members or society at large to forcibly commit people to mental health treatment. I think homeless people should receive housing, but it should be assigned housing over which they get little or no influence. The worst cases of mental illness should be treated with forced commitment to mental hospitals (which need to be reopened). Those who just get drunk or drugged all the time or who refuse to take their medicine should be housed in rural locations where drugs and alcohol are not readily available, and where they can be monitored and forced to take their medication.
Perhaps, with time, some of these people can be reintroduced to society. If not, they can be kept off the street where they pose a danger to themselves and to others.