Anecdotal, I know... When I was in uni, I worked as a street trader and met quite a few interesting characters. Some of them were homeless or had been homeless or were otherwise not "normal" members of society and a common theme was that the people in the worst situations (homelessness and poverty, as opposed to just leading an alternative lifestyle) were this way due to unfortunate circumstances.
I've been close to poor (soft-poor though; I did have family that I could have fallen back on if things got bad enough) a few times in my life, where I literally didn't have money for essentials and I never spent money I didn't have. I wouldn't say I'm good at budgeting, but I'm not bad at it either. I'm lucky that I work in software and therefore could bounce back pretty quickly, but not everybody is able to. I've got family whose professions were pretty badly affected by the recession, for example, and while they're pulling through, it took years (and a ton of debt) to get to a point where things are starting to look better again.
My point is that, while I'm sure there are plenty of people who are in bad situations because of their own flaws, mistakes or lack of foresight, this isn't a global truth and I think its pretty uncompassionate to treat everyone as if it were the case, especially since I've seen how easily it can happen, in some circumstances.
I believe that many people can and will bounce back, if given the support and opportunity to do so. Especially if they have this support before things get extremely bad. (eg many homeless people take drugs to help them cope. This makes it harder to get out of the situation. If the support were there _before_ this happens, it would be easier)
Again, this is all anecdotal, but I think that society should play a part in managing it by not letting it get out of control to the point where "solving" it becomes as big a burden as it often is.
While there will always be people who wind up there of their own poor choices, I hope that you would agree that it is not all of them. And even in the poor choice case, there may be societal systems that helped to enable them to get there.
It is not about blame in my opinion, but solutions. Solutions which at the moment, sadly, seem to be in short supply.
But I guess with the adoption of the policy of taking such decisions by public referendums is a good way to counter this shortcoming.
It is because society (i.e. the legal bodies, but also the culture and the people on average) in the Western world aim for higher standard to all their citizen.
It is a similar issue as with Human Rights in general. Small violation in a Western country has almost people in the street, but harsh human violation in other countries is hardly worth a mention in the news. That's not double standard or obsessive political correctness or western guilt, it is because Western society has declared Human Rights to be its founding principles, and people living in those countries expect the government to enforce it.
In short you live in a society where shelter is a fundamental right, so failing to provide shelter, regardless of the circumstance is a societal failing by definition. If you disagree, that is fine, you need to either find a society inline with you own social vision, or, more realistically, vote for the representative that share your vision of society and endure until it shifts. ( and it shifts, US society is way less forgiving than European society in general for example )
I think the author has oversimplified many important things related to the problem of homelessness. I want to point of some other aspects of this problem.
Let me explain.
How the homelessness of all the homeless people can be blamed on the societal shortcomings? What about the homeless person's shortcomings?
Blaming everything on society and ignoring the personal shortcomings may gain political advantage but it sets very bad precedences and spoils the entire societal fabric. (The Marxists/socialists always use this as a tactic to sway public mood and that is more harmful for the free and humane society.)
e.g. I may be homeless because I sold my house and spent all the money on drugs or in the casinos or on watching movies or on prostitutes or on the internet or on something else to derive various types of carnal/non-carnal pleasures. In this way, not only I became homeless but I made my entire family of 4 children and a wife homeless.
This is just one example. The other major reason is immigration of huge number of people who are unskilled and/or are unwilling to work and migrate to cities which are more popular and hence are more costly and thus find themselves homeless.
How exactly can such homelessness be blamed on the society? In the first example, the person, who enjoyed the freedom of choice, must face the consequences of his/her actions.
In the other case: it is EU leaders' foolish (almost suicidal) decision to allow unchecked immigration to flood the European cities and make the life of the people already living there a hell. One of the very important reasons for Brexit is related to immigration, especially the immigration of people unwilling to integrate: i.e. people from Islamic countries.
I don't deny that there are some people (especially children) who are homeless not because of their own but because of someone else's actions. Let's agree, for the sake of argument, that a more humane society must take responsibility of such homeless people.
But even then, even if the homelessness of such people is partly due to some societal shortcomings, why the rest of people should suffer to provide space (e.g. public benches) for the homeless ones to sleep on?