Comment by seanmcdirmid

We really screwed the pooch on remote work, which would have made it less important to live in “the hot city” and would have let people live in Toledo or Buffalo if they wanted.

There are multiple categories of homeless people, with some (the most visible ones) choosing what cities they are unhoused in. Seattle (where I live) is never going to be able to house all of them: the more money we throw at the problem (and we spend a lot!), the worse it gets for obvious reasons. It is much easier to solve homeless problems in a city that isn’t a destination due to climate, social services spending, or drug availability. We do lots of tiny home villages here also, they cost around $100k/year/unit to run, which doesn’t make sense, but that’s what the non profits are charging and what the city/county are paying.