Mental health, housing and drugs.
Up and down the west coast.
It's impossible to solve homelessness with homelessness nonprofits, government programs for the homeless, as it's an outgrowth of factors like a high cost of living, generational poverty,the working poor lacking a living wage where they can save for emergencies, a lack of social welfare and health care programs, abusive homes, etc.
You have new people who were living paycheck to paycheck who are going to become homeless. Happens all the time.
You have queer and trans youths running away from abusive homes.
So lots of people being added regularly to the homeless population. And of course chronic homeless... because it becomes harder to get back on your feet the longer you are homeless.
The thing that really kills me, and I'm not exactly a marxist or anything, but there is absolutely enough money in America to solve homelessness, enough land to build on and enough money to build the homes. There is enough food to feed everyone (and 1 in 5 US families report not having enough food during covid 19).
We just don't distribute our resources well. The already wealthy got richer during covid 19, while many other Americans slipped deeper into debt/poverty, etc.
So yeah, we are left with our tax dollars funding these issues, because the system is set up to the benefit of some people, and to the detriment of others. And that's not just the way the world is, not some natural state of things, it's how our institutions and culture and laws and financial systems have been made in the US, and how they have been maintained and advanced by interested parties.
It doesn't have to be this way.
These are solvable problems, difficult but managible, which is why I encourage people to actually get involved, write letters, donate, organize and lobby, etc.
It's evident that the free market has failed to house people appropriately, and also evident that it would be cheaper and easier to solve homelessness with state-provided housing first solutions.
Not taking this action is "allowing a homelessness industry to exist".
Yeah, the thing is there are political and regulatory efforts to deal with these, but most people don't hear/read about them, unless they are super wonky.
So the people who tend to get involved are the wealthy people who benefit financially from the outcome, and the occasional non profit. The latter is where you can actually make an impact for good.
Check out https://cayimby.org/ and take part in their campaigns/petitions, and tell your friends to do so.
They have a great track record in terms of housing bills, and an associated organization that is suing communities that are blocking affordable housing.