IANAE, but I don't think that's how slavery worked.

What? You are being spitefully obtuse. With slavery, the entire problem is you cannot leave your job, you are owned, and at the mercy of your owner. With my first bullet point, I am simply creating an option that does not currently exist.

#2 is the more controversial point. My gut and personal preferences say that the long-term utility gain to the general public plus the homeless person of moving them into dorm living exceeds the short-term utility loss to the homeless person of not being allowed to sleep on the street, and being forced to move into the dorm living (provided the dorm living is actually clean and maintained, and is not like awful shelter living).

Under the proposed homeless people have two choices: 1) Live in the provided housing and work 20hrs a week for no pay. 2) Go to jail and possibly be forced to work anyway.

1) + 2)

edit: shkkmo and VBprogrammer are right. 1) = dormitories w/mandatory unpaid labor; 2) = illegal to be homeless; 3) = restrictions on migration.

What harm does homelessness cause the general public? Does it negatively impact their everyday life?

>>Guarantee all people access to cheap, government provided dormitory style living, with a kitchen and basic food staples, in return for 20 hours of very basic work (picking up trash, watching security cameras, etc.).

This is what slavery is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

They're not equal at all.

Now, there is another factor that perhaps you could have been clearer about that would help support your case. You could argue that there are dynamics in society that drive people into #1 without having any real choice. That's a different problem, but still not at the level of what slavery was.

e.g., the criminal system becomes easier and easier to fall into everyday and extremely hard to get out of.

You could argue that suggestions 2) and 3) are an intentional plan to restrict people to a single choice.

What was that person thinking, offering me a voluntary position I can leave when I wish. The nerve of some people.

In his version, you get arrested for begging, shipped back to your home town, perhaps the desolate place you left in hope of finding a job before falling on hard times, or perhaps back to a place where your abusive father or partner can find you again.

And you get to pick up litter off the street or whatever menial job is available, not in exchange for money like a normal person, but in exchange for a room and basic food. Until you can somehow find a way to move into an approved place of living.

Not to mention that even in the nice comfortable version of reality he pretends could possibly exist the problems of those homeless people won't simply disappear. Drug addiction, alcohol problems and mental issues will still be rife. The utopian clean and well maintained dorms will soon be more akin to prisons with guards trying to limit the contraband taken in. Obviously that will fail, if the modern prison system is anything to go by.