An example cited in the article mentions a Citizen staffer wanting an escort to a coffee shop...if these are the types of situations where one might want to utilize a private service...what's the harm? The police aren't your personal bodyguards. Most colleges have walk-home services etc.

In many states, security guards can be armed in public, but so can private citizens.

The endgame for this will be large-scale gated communities that are town-level. A surefire to prevent homelessness in a particular town is for the entire town to be private property. If you can't card-in, you don't get in. Dystopian yes, but probably inevitable, and the trail was blazed by the modern corporate campus that operates on the same principles.