Spending money or how much is spent, as a metric, is meaningless. Ridiculous, really.

What matters are effective measures.

What also matters is what is attainable with the legal framework we have, not some fantasy land where you just put people in rooms for free and the problem is fixes.

Of course you have to house people who can't fend for themselves. Of course you have to feed them. Of course you have to treat them. Of course you have to provide training and counseling so they can rejoin society, get a job and have a life.

Of course.

Of course.

Of course!

And yet, the problem isn't housing. Do they need a place to live that isn't the streets? Duh! Of course. However, above all, what they need is effective treatment and training. Without that, no amount of free housing fixes the problem.

Years ago I had an employee who would occasionally not come to work for a few days here and there. We never knew what was goin on. He was a good guy. We dealt with it as best we could.

Three months later the police knock on our door. He was found dead behind a 7-Eleven in the neighborhood. Turns out he was an alcoholic. It also turns out he would go into a drinking spree with almost every paycheck he got from us. He was deeply addicted to alcohol and nobody had a clue.

Well, I later met his brother. He told me his family had been trying to help him for decades. Nothing they could do about it at all. Once again, the laws I refer to. We cannot force people into treatment of any kind. Or, for that matter, housing. This guy was in his early 40's. He made good money doing construction work. He had housing. He had a car. He did not lack resources at all. And yet he was found dead by the trashcans behind a 7-Eleven.

The root cause is mental health, drugs and addiction.

The problem is we lack the legal tools to be able to interdict and help people under the grip of these afflictions.

Therefore, the only potential solution is some form of severe clamp-down on drugs and alcohol as well as coming up with an intelligent way to deal with mental health issues.

These are very difficult problems to solve. Some more than others.

We can definitely be extremely effective against illicit drugs. Violently effective. That would help a lot of people. Yet, for some reason, politicians don't seem interested in doing a thing about it.

Alcohol is tough. We can't ban it. Not sure how you keep alcoholics from alcohol. Again, the legal framework just isn't there for this. I don't know. Also, I don't drink alcohol. Never developed a taste for it. So, I don't really understand the appeal.

some of the inaction is truly disconcerting. We are being invaded by all kinds of fentanyl-laced products through the southern border, and our government is doing nothing to shut this down in a decisive manner. I mean, literally shit disguised as candy is coming through in industrial amounts:

https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2022/08/30/dea-warns-brig...

The problem isn't money. Or how much of it we might spend. It is not making the right decisions and not going after root causes of problems. The root causes are nowhere near to housing. Housing is a necessary tool for rehabilitation, of course. However, nothing will be solved unless the root causes are addressed with serious effectiveness first, or simultaneously.

I will remind you that my reply was to this statement (not made by you):

> Homelessness is caused primarily by a lack of homes

This isn't true.