I would like to see a legitimate reason someone would flag this before very much HN intelligence can be brought to bear, at least in civilized discussion.

Flag the uncivilized, not the controversial subject.

Not everyone who loses everything (even repeatedly) is actually uncivilzed.

I'm not financially much different than the SF tech workers who started out very conservatively staying in their vans, who it looks like now would be more well-prepared to maintain their "lifestyle" after being layed off through no fault of their own compared to those renting a place at local market value.

I admit having lifestyle issues myself, I'd have to get a life and get some style :)

Natural disasters, especially in series can set you back more years than you may have left as a senior citizen.

SF just lucked out this century having fewer earthquakes than we had hurricanes here.

Anecdotally I observe the much more desperate homeless camps in Houston doubling every year since before covid. Countless thousands who are not homeless (yet) have not recovered at all from Harvey, and that's just the most recent one.

But Houston in particular is not what I'm here to discuss.

It's the cost of housing relative to what kind of roof can be kept over the head without a job or a job that pays much less than a "living wage".

It's not poverty alone, increased poverty levels just put more people than ever near the brink. As a result the vast majority of impoverished work even harder putting every one of their resources into avoiding going over the cliff. Way more than was necessary in the past. Regardless, more than ever can not prevent eventual descent without the much more common personal safety nets that used to exist before such extreme income inequality and the resultant excessive rent-seeking overall.

The further back you go, the more likely it was for someone with little or no income to remain housed if they ever were beforehand.

Barring the huge percentage of those too mentally outlying or deficient to maintan domestic life, added to the non-overlapping cohorts of drug & alcohol seekers too severe to dedicate any funds to housing given the choice. That does total more than the 33% identified in the article whom it is expected low-cost housing would not be anything near a complete solution. For decades this was handled with an institutional approach which highly motivated this 33+% to remain invisible on their own lest they become dragged in unwillingly.

IIRC the 1970's which figure prominently in the discussions, is also when the value of the dollar plummeted at the same time labor and resulting housing costs began to rise exponentially, from what had often been insignificant compared to what 21st century jobless could maintain for very long at all now by comparison. Institutional reductions were not really so much compassionate, that was more like an excuse when costs rose so rapidly politicans could no longer afford to continue making taxpayers bear it.

That's politics through the years with gradually much less consideration for all constitutents than it was supposed to be. Homeless don't vote and I can't either from only a PO box.

As we can see now, this was kicked way into the next century, and if taxpayers can be made to pay now it will be orders of magnitude more dearly.

It's been widely said that "the rent's too damn high" and that is really the problem from top to bottom. Every tier of housing cost needs to come down dramatically, not just "low income" properties, or there will never be dramatic reductions in the excess of unhoused who would otherwise be capable of domestic stability.

People are not really counting the upcoming generations having middle-class heritage who will not be inclined to locate into low income housing if it becoes available, even if that is the only thing financially realistic for so many.

Plus those who have become property owners, especially if that ends up being their only significant asset, present enormous pressure for property values to rise also in many locations as exponentially as possible or they will not be able to keep up with the financial rent-seekers who have had the benefit of exponential growth even earlier, enough for it to be locked in by comparison.

It is even far less likely that the value of the currency will recover enough for the few dollars a beggar or charity case can muster to re-domesticate those who have had to do without, and would otherwise succeed with an afforable home of some type.

The laborers who actually build housing simply need to make so much more relative to the charity cases than it was before the 1970's, just to keep the head above water themselves. Otherwise no new housing at all. And the laborers are near the bottom of the income inequality totem pole themselves. The real cost is simply too great for average workers to afford anything like it was back then, so everyone has to settle for less unless previously accumulated resources (like generational wealth or merely safety net) can be drawn upon, and eventually they run out for the least privileged who more & more can no longer realistically consider domestic life whatsoever.

Vehicles have even recently escalated out-of-reach for those who were close just a couple years ago, now requiring at least an additional few years of stability before consideration can be realistically made.