http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/18/world/la-fg-china-ca...

“The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its annual Point in Time count Wednesday, a report that showed nearly 554,000 homeless people across the country during local tallies conducted in January. That figure is up nearly 1 percent from 2016.

Of that total, 193,000 people had no access to nightly shelter and instead were staying in vehicles, tents, on the streets and other places considered uninhabitable. The unsheltered figure is up by more than 9 percent compared with two years ago.” (To scale, that would be 2.5 million homeless in China which has roughly similar figures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_China).

Would you prefer to live in a tent on land you didn't own or in a cave dwelling you did?

This is what a cave dwelling is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaodong

From the article you posted it says, “The thriving market around Yanan means a cave with three rooms and a bathroom (a total of 750 square feet) can be advertised for sale at $46,000.”

I have been to Granada in Spain where they have similar dwellings carved into the hill-sides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacromonte#Origin_of_the_caves

I imagine that cave dwelling is a thing in many parts of the world and, though traditional, it should probably not be confused with destitution.

“In the last decade, yaodongs have been brought to the attention of scientists and researchers. These traditional dwellings have been regarded as an example of sustainable design.”