You know, I have had a class on homelessness through SFSU and I have spent a bit over 4 years homeless. I am still on the street. A few facts:

The problems of homeless individuals are typically intractable and not readily solved.

They often gravitate to larger cities both because you get to be more anonymous that way and because there are more support resources available than in a small town.

When I took that class on homelessness through SFSU, I learned that New York is about ten times the population of San Francisco and they have similar numbers of homeless people on the street. Part of the reason is the beautiful weather in San Francisco. You are much less likely to freeze to death there or die of heat prostration there than in most other places in the U.S. and it rains relatively little. Part of the reason is the generous benefits in San Francisco. It actively attracts homeless people.

When I first hit the street, I traveled from the East Coast to San Diego. It has less rain than San Francisco and a lower cost of living, but is a large enough city to have soup kitchens and other resources. I spent six months in downtown where there is a concentration if support programs, then traveled north as I became less needy. I later left the county entirely, seeking out a lower cost city, but one still large enough to have the resources I need and where I won't stand out excessively.

Although I fervently wish that there was not so much prejudice against me for being homeless and I fervently wish I could get more help, I mostly do not want charity. I mostly want people online to take my need to develop an online income more seriously. I wish people online, in places like Hacker News, were more capable of seeing me as an intelligent, competent human being who is medically handicapped, not an incompetent dolt and not "just a skirt."

I am on the street to get myself well. I very much need more earned income, a message that mostly falls on deaf ears while people treat me like a beggar, a charity case or a damsel in distress who is after their money. My pleas to help me figure out how to develop an online income stream of earned income are dismissed and ignored, often by the same people who would like for me to shut up and stop telling people I am homeless because they interpret that admission as a request for a handout.

I have had at least three friends offer me a place to stay. I turned them down. They were on the East Coast or the Gulf Coast and the housing would not have been adequate to my needs for other reasons. I very much would like to get off the street, but not at the cost of the health improvements for which I have paid such a dear price.

Your judginess of people in Silicon Valley is rooted in nothing but ignorance. It takes a lot more than good intentions and money to help people with long term, intractable personal problems. I absolutely would accept housing at this point, but only if it met the picky standards necessary to keep me healthy. This rules out both homeless shelters and rental housing. It is imperative that I somehow go from homeless to homeowner.

If you think you are morally superior to the people in Silicon Valley, feel free to stick about $50k or $100k in my PayPal account so I can go house shopping. If not, perhaps you can at least rein in your ignorant contempt for a city that has more homeless people than average in part because it gives them more support than average.