I think the problem is there are vastly different types of people that we all lump under the term “homeless”. And each of us is likely picturing a different type of person when entering into these conversations. The homeless can range anywhere from:
a single mom who works in an office making 1.5x minimum wage, but whose expenses have risen (perhaps by medical) and she fell behind on rent, and now lives out of her car. Still employed but just doesn’t have the capital to get back on her feet.
To:
A complete drug addicted mentally ill schizophrenic who shits on himself. Hasn’t had a job ever, hasn’t been educated, and can not hold a cogent conversation.
I wouldn’t dream of giving cash to the latter but would certainly consider doing so for the former. Both are homeless. And conversations about solutions to the homeless are fruitless if we treat them the same. The English language is rich and it needs more words to disambiguate these two classes of homeless.
The primary ones that politicians don’t like is that if they just give the homeless cash they can’t get kickbacks from anybody claiming to offer government funded services for the homeless, and they give up control. There is a billion ways to shoot yourself in the foot or allow for corruption by not doing direct cash transfers and I’ve never seen any alternative outperform direct cash transfers.
This all being said, the homeless referred to the welfare check day where I lived as “Mardi Gras” and got shitfaced on booze. Which to me is a problem which could be largely fixed by doing more frequent welfare transfers. Keep in mind though the people getting welfare are diverse, this study was concerning the recently homeless.
On the whole the homeless virtually never are negatively affected by cash anyways. If anything they benefit from each dollar more than the average person would. Even a drug addict is seldom better off poorer.
I think the argument could be made that giving an addict more money means giving them more money for their self destructive addictions, which is ultimately counter productive.
On the flip side, giving them more money could reduce the likelihood they turn to crime to fund their addictions.
You could make this exact argument against income tax cuts for the rich. Drug and alcohol consumption is strongly correlated to income, so cutting the top marginal tax rate is just feeding the destructive habits of the rich.
Wouldn't a jobs program also help them while bettering society as a whole in the process and possibly teaching them a skill?
It wouldn't have to be hard labor, I'm thinking park beautification or paid internships for skilled jobs that have shortages.
Long term I see "free" money from the government just expanding the class of people that are dependent upon the government for their way of life. The old "teach a man to fish" addage.
Let's see if I am right.