Poverty almost certainly costs more than all this ecologically, socially, and financially. The suffering and stress of the unhoused spills over into the lives of others who interact with or observe them, increasing our collective societal stress levels, increasing hospital visits, pushing people to earlier deaths (especially, of course, among the ultra-poor), and leading to expenses involving their unplanned funerals and messier aftermaths as opposed to cleanly laid-out wills, lost/absent documentation, etc.

Poverty drives people to violence and crime when they feel unheard and ignored. What if that house could help people find some peace in their lives? Instead maybe they become the very ones who rob and wreck it out of desperation. Societies need to help all people to keep the peace.

A lot of these issues can be or begin to be solved by giving them small apartments like in Finland. Homelessness ultimately costs society more than the actual cost to home them, ironically. We’ll see, I suppose: https://www.nprillinois.org/illinois/2025-03-19/housing-experts-worry-about-federal-plans-to-cut-homelessness-programs