If someone knew of a way to reduce the money made by drugs we could reduce it. Drugs are one of the root problems.

The thing is most homeless suffer from pretty serious drug and alcohol addictions. Rehabs work only for a small percentage as most addicts relapse because drugs are very powerful at almost permanent rewiring the brain and most who come out of rehab will associate with the same previous friends that are still doing drugs and fall back into using.

So the root cause I would say is drugs. If you can find a way to limit the quantity of easily accessible drugs then that would go a long way to reducing homeless. This was the reason we did the “war on drugs” for decades to try and help but as we see that didn’t help. Cartels and others make hundreds and hundreds of millions from drugs and they are so easily manufactured that they will always find ways to get them out in the ppls hands.

You could also argue that “greed” could be the root cause. The greed of drug manufactures and dealers is the incentive driving the drugs market. If you could limit ppls greed that could reduce it. Again I doubt that would happen because let’s face it greed is in human biology and it’s not something you can really control unless you start genetically modifying ppls dna to be less greedy.

Another factor that contributes to homeless is population. There are just too many ppl on this planet and not enough good jobs for everyone. China, one of the most populous countries has tried combating this with limiting the amount of children ppl can have for decades. Here lies moral issues and a bunch of other problems. Over population is a real thing for the planet and it’s doing more damage then just homelessness, like global warming, pollution, natural environmental destruction, over mining resources, food and wildlife destruction etc.

The planet is at a tipping point with population and homelessness is a product of that.

Some have suggested free or low priced housing for homeless ppl, the problem with that is drug addicted ppl will take advantage of that and will destroy those properties and will still be addicts and really won’t solve the problem. Now the problem isn’t really homeless, many choose to live in tents and given a choice between a free small home or a tent they really wouldn’t care as long as they are getting high. The problem is the drug use, the drug use is what makes the area prone to crime. You can be homeless and still be clean and not be an addict and not commit theft and destroy property and stuff. But the majority of homeless are addicts and it’s the addicts that are going out and doing the crime.