Speaking as someone who has closely known struggling and recovering addicts, that's a callous and haughty simplification. Don't let addicts drag you down, but to judge them as if they simply choose worse than other people is radically unkind to a fellow human who is struggling.

It is a throwback to the Prosperity Gospel and, before that, the Protestant concept of predestination-- unfortunately prevalent ideas in the early settlers & founders of the US. Basically it says that God favors the faithful & devout with prosperity. Therefore prosperity is a sign of God's favor, and anyone who is not prosperous is therefore immoral/bad/lesser etc. Such things are more complicated than a simple analysis, but it's one of the root causes behind the idea that "poor people are poor by choice"

Perhaps more perniciously, since this doctrine says that the prosperous are those blessed by God, then becoming prosperous is the main goal: the means by which that happens are irrelevant. Cheat/Lie/Con etc., but become prosperous? It must be okay, because the prosperous are blessed by God.

That is a loaded claim. Perhaps you could provide a more detailed support for it besides an anecdotal data point. Along with details of your cousin's situation to better classify his status (i.e., if your cousin was couch surfing for a while, or living on the street, or in a shelter, or in a car, etc)

Yes for sure. My cousin and moved to chicago into a $1000/per month rental unit in west chicago. I found a minimum wage job as a gas station clerk, my cousin refused to get a job and preferred being a vagrant, I had to kick him out since I couldn't afford to pay the full rent without a roomate and I had maxed out the one credit card I had. He bounced around from place to place tricking family and friends into believing he is working on finding job. One of my family contacts even got him a job at subway in suburbs of chicago but he refused to work there for more than a week. He eventually ended up on the streets. I am not quite sure if he could've used an govt assistance since he didn't have a legal status in the country. I eventually found a better paying job at a hospital picking up soiled laundry but I lost touch with my cousin, he didn't have a cell phone back then.

there are Homeless by choice

FTFY

And on r/homeless I learned the wonderful expression "I didn't choose the choice."

Many people who are "homeless by choice" are making choices like "Do I keep living with my abusive spouse/relative or do I go sleep in my car?"

In most cases, if they had a better option than homelessness, they would be all over it in a heartbeat. They just don't happen to have that and have chosen homelessness as the lesser evil in comparison to some other major problem.

Edit:

Something I wrote, if anyone wants to read up more:

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/when-family...