To start with, any policy affecting a population that can move and be moved has to operate at the scope that those people are allowed to move. That means the taxing and funding distribution HAS to be on a national level. It probably also means that per-recipient funding needs to be proportional to the cost of living in a given area. (which SHOULD also be calculated realistically.)
This would at least stop "poor" communities from dumping a national problem on bigger cities that try to be more kind. It would also encourage longer term solutions over broken window / temporary bandaids.
It would also need to be systemic. There are a number of failures in society contributing to the issue.
* Single payer healthcare - everyone's covered.
* Actual mental healthcare (not just asylums)
* Everyone is a worthy being
* New New Deal - A job for all, with meaning and value.
* Identify and correct market failures.
And this came to a boiling point when a Chinese friend insisted the homeless situation was better in China. So I looked up the numbers. Adjusted for population, it isn't, and in fact it's slightly worse. That was a surprise to me. But it's less visible there because it's considered shameful.
I personally think everyone deserves a fully belly and a roof over their head. I think the rest is up to them. And I could go with medicare for all as an improvement over the current inequitable situation, but I think we could do better than that, yet I doubt we ever will. And that saddens me.
I can only see two that are well within the range that might be covered if all the other safety nets fixed individuals that had become injured or otherwise unable to work (this is assuming we have MUCH better tech, like Star Trek / Orville level tech, to actually repair all types of damage).
Housing: This is more a choice made by the irrational market, not so much by individual humans. Yes there is less expensive housing, but it's usually not located near jobs or has a high externality / transaction cost of somekind. Referencing the source article, Japan does have a fantastically run transit system that is also reasonably priced. That does extend the range of available locations.
Jobs themselves; do you think that job placement systems are not a better idea instead of being "hired" to "look" for a job (which should not be ANYONE's primary life skill!)? If an aptitude test shows that there is untrained area that skill could be acquired in, getting that skill might be the assigned 'job' instead. (retraining/education)
I don't tell people what to do with their lives and the thought of a well-intentioned bureaucracy doing so doesn't thrill me (perhaps from being placed in all the slow classes against my will as a child I am biased here). I like the free market for jobs. Empower people to make their own choices. Give them free community college even. But let them make their own minds up.
California could turn a lot of its secondary cities into job markets as well as suburbs for the major cities if they could build cost-effective mass transit. It seems incapable of getting that job done though so it seems like the only alternative is remote work, and without a cultural shift, that is piecemeal solution. Also look at what happened to SB50, shot down by effectively friendly fire from NIMBYs, not the conservatives.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/california-sb50...
The problem is that California, at all levels of government, refuses to fix its core issue: Housing, and the cost of living at a level to hold onto that house, is Too High. Ever notice how California is willing to try anything and everything to fix its homelessness crisis except intervene in the housing market in a meaningful way? In my view, California’s legislation in its current state is a band-aid, not a cure. But a band-aid is (temporarily) better than nothing.
Ultimately the free market (* I’ll concede an argument may be made that housing is not a truly free market, since municipalities have created strict zoning legislation to favor homeowners, but my point still stands), directly and indirectly, has failed everyone looking to build a permanent home and life in California (unless your definition of “success” includes a large population unable to afford a home where they live).
I’d imagine that without these “social programs, socialism, ... social justice policy” there would be many more homeless people than there currently are.
Housing, and the cost of living at a level to hold onto that house, is Too High
Merced OTOH is probably more of what you're thinking, and it has some really nice houses priced competitively with the suburbs of Dallas, but other than a new UC campus, there's not much else to recommend the place and it has a huge meth issue. But I do think the future of California is in places like this (and there are many more), but I have no idea how to make that future happen.
California should be our wake up call to change, instead, we double down on the same policies.