>Does someone who makes bad choices deserve to be homeless and destitute later in life?

The rest of us don't deserve to pay for their bad choices.

I agree, but I think it's more expensive to figure out who has brought their fate upon themselves and doesn't really deserve the money and who genuinely just had bad luck. That's why I'm in favor of a universal social safety net, for example via a basic income.

Bad choices don't happen in a vacuum any more than good choices do.

I have other things I'd rather do with my money.

Suppose your odds of landing in that exact scenerio are .001%. If you are unlucky, should we pay for you? What about your kids?

It seems valuable to society to not have old, homeless people causing trouble. But that's just me.

That .001% is what charity is for.

Personally, I think people should pay the price for their stupidity. Subsidizing stupidity never works out in the end.

The problem is you're not thinking of externalities of homelessness, much like a functioning health system w/ insurance.

Ultimately, saying neither of these is worth spending communal government revenues on collapses down to "I'm okay with people dying on the street."

Which is not offered as a straw man, but because that's a very possible outcome. And given that, if we're not okay with that, then we're going to spend significant resources to keep that from happening (ER care, homeless programs).

Social security attempts to invest that earlier in a person's life, so that the money treating more dire circumstances can be saved.

... And also allows for some measure of human dignity for those who might not have been taught about compound interest at age 6.

Next time, please provide a source for your percentages.