We absolutely should build more homeless shelters. However many homeless people refuse to stay in current dorm style shelters because they don't allow drug use, or pets, or the other residents are dangerous.
This is a debate that comes up and I'm only familiar with the specifics in San Francisco. I won't claim it's the same anywhere else.
The shelters are full so the obvious problem is not people refusing to sleep in them.
At the same time, many of the "offers" of going inside are disingenuous. People giving up all of their belongings (specifically tent and camping stove), leaving loved ones, and the promised shelter is only guaranteed for a couple weeks.
When I say dorm style shelters I specifically mean each person has a door to lock and feel safe behind. Most current shelters are dozens of cots in a large room. I wouldn't feel safe there either.
I can bet, the shelter utilization is highly correlated with the cost of square foot in the area, which is a proxy for general desirability.
And the solution should be to increase the desirability of other areas, rather than making homelessness the new norm. As a nice side effect, this will solve the general housing availability issues as well.
Except, the public opinion is that we should somehow all stick to a handful of coastal megacities and join the race to the bottom in terms of square feet per person, noise and cleanliness. This certainly benefits big property developers, big vendors and big employers that wouldn't be economically viable in a much sparser area, but I genuinely don't understand why so many people are happy to voluntarily move into a hamster wheel.
