Often these funds go towards housing people so they are no longer homeless, so you might have X people who are currently homeless, but Y people relying on that $1B to remain housed.
Because of that, it's inaccurate to divide $1B by X and then claim that's how much going towards individuals who are still homeless anyway, when it is more accurate to divide that figure by X+Y.
It isn't like that money is being flushed down a hole, results are being had on an individual basis, but for reasons that are nationwide in scope, the overall problem (# of homeless people on the streets of Seattle) isn't getting any better.
National problems require national solutions, but half the senate is perfectly happy to offload the cost of social ills onto coastal metros.
Think about how monumentally worse the problem might be if they didn't spend that money. There are very likely tens of thousands more people who would be homeless if not for government support/programs. Just imagine how many people would be on the streets in a week if EI and disability income streams were cut.
> At the same time, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Seattle metro area spends more than $1 billion fighting homelessness every year. That’s nearly $100,000 for every homeless man, woman, and child in King County, yet the crisis seems only to have deepened, with more addiction, more crime, and more tent encampments in residential neighborhoods. By any measure, the city’s efforts are not working.
For incarceration costs:
https://www.doc.wa.gov/docs/publications/reports/200-AR001.p...
About $110/day (so $40,150/year)