Additionally, many homeless don't want to live in shelters.
Shelters need to be motel rooms or SROs and everybody would go.
You gotta treat folks with dignity. The poor living conditions , cracked out neighbors, restricted hours, and lack of privacy in such places are dehumanizing. My church has a foodbank for federal and state tax incentives. When i would volunteer there on wednesdays , i woukd often get curious about the homeless’ circumstances and simply ask how they got where they are and what their lives are currently like. I woukd often hear stories of
- assault from fellow residents at the shelters (both sexual and physical),
- theft of essentials for work (phone, wallet, laptop, clothes, notebooks, uniforms, buss passes , etc) ,
- the inability to leave work and make it to the shelter with no transport before closing/locking doors
- lack of privacy from shady characters or the psychological anxiety from being packed like sardines.
- the lack of support for homeless that are doing readily available nightshift jobs (gas station, ups, amazon, etc)
You gotta give them them exact kind of living circumstances that you yourself would like. we gotta get beyond this bare minimum mindset and treat folks with dignity. you cant just put a bunch of randoms together in a glorified warehouse with a bunch of cots and call it good.. Notice how in the east coast states and cities like denver/austin ; they have no issues sheltering people when they get vouchers for the local motels and hotels (Environments that filter out the problems i listed earlier)
i think the issue is just a lack of perspective from the rest of us in society, as well as from the policy makers. Ideally, policy makers would spend a week or two shadowing the homeless and see exactly what needs they have , and what objections the face; instead of assuming they understand from their privileged positions. As long as this lack of perspective isnt addressed, you will continue seeing homeless people address their problems themselves by living in shanty towns, delapitated rv(s) on the road, in their cars, or even in storage units.