As an anecdote, two people in my family have been or are homeless (don't know their current situation) entirely because they are incapable of continually making basic, smart financial decisions. At the level of "I decided to just not show up to work today" or "I spent my entire week's pay on a new toy". They both received enormous financial and social support from various people in the family, but always eventually just end up spending all their money somehow, or they get fired, or even just quit their job(!). Both eventually ran away from the responsibilities they built up into a different state.

I don't know if we should call this inability to make basic, smart financial decisions a mental illness or not, but it's something. And these 2 people aren't/weren't even what I would consider visibly homeless. At least as long as you didn't see them living in their car behind a convenience store.

Starting with the framing that housing is just too expensive makes the problem simple. You build more housing, or you subsidize housing for these people, or somehow just inject money into services for them so they can get back on their feet. But if that's not the core issue for some or many of these people, how do you actually help these people? How does a society help people who are incapable of handling their own finances? That's where the hard questions begin.

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amanaplanacanal 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I doubt we will get to the end cause of all the issues in a conversation here, but my understanding is that getting people whatever kind of help they need is vastly easier if they have a roof over their head and a permanent address.

	▲	xboxnolifes 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I agree. But one of these 2 people had subsidized housing through the state. It was incredibly cheap rent for the area. Cheaper than any housing can be just from building more. But they still lost the place after a few months because they did not pay rent and instead bought toys and quit their job. They were receiving money from the family, work opportunities from the family, the family walked them through all of their legal and bureaucratic needs, and the family took care of their children. But it was not enough. For this subset of people, I don't see how you can help them without managing their finances for them. Even if you completely manage their finances, how do you help them if they just quit every job they get? I never really thought about it much before them, but I think pretty often about the problem. How do you help someone who can't be helped? Even if you gave them free housing and a weekly allowance, they would still find a way to not have money for food before the next week.