We may need to build units but they should probably be built differently. 100-200sf Concrete walls, wet bathrooms and single burner kitchens. Not much bigger than a small motor home and mostly indestructible. IT should be shelter but it doesn’t have to be nice or big and common building materials are not suitable but these extreme applications.
I disagree. Housing is a huge part of dignity and dignity is a huge part of society. Crime and vagrancy are expensive and most homeless people are citizens having a hard time, almost always due to circumstances beyond their control. The proper pathway is to have a place of dignity so you can grab the bottom rung of the ladder again and work your way up. If you can't? If you're stuck on the bottom rung? You should be treated as if you're on the ladder. Some homeless/mentally ill people can't properly live on their own. Halfway houses catch those who slot into the system neatly and their lives are expensive - I have a buddy who manages those situations for the state and one DD ex-criminal can be a million dollars a year or more. Actuarially speaking, however, that's cheaper than violence.
A million a year per person is unsustainable, and it’s not cheap. In fact Actuarially speaking 10 years of that is worth one American life. It is 2x more than my entire projected lifetime earnings. Locking that person up in jail is significantly cheaper, a gallows and 6 feet of dirt even more so. There is a practical point where society basically needs to let people somewhat ethically live out their lives in a contained fashion where they cannot harm others but no more than that. Burning 2-3 lifetimes worth of lifetime output on one broken individual makes no sense. I can’t see how as a society we should invest in 1 broken person as opposed to 10 teachers for example.
And wouldn't the world be a simpler place if we all agreed where that point is? Regardless of what the "sustainable" price is, cost reduction was the proximate cause of the increase in American homelessness from the '70s onward. As far as "a gallows and 6 feet of dirt" is concerned, the civilized world resoundingly condemns your approach.There is a practical point where society basically needs to let people somewhat ethically live out their lives in a contained fashion where they cannot harm others but no more than that.