It's not a solution, but as someone who slept in her car in a college parking lot because her father got pissed at her being around his house while queer, it's better than we'd had. I was afraid I would get in trouble for sleeping like that. Mind you, the main reason I couldn't sleep that night was that it was really fucking cold and it's really hard to sleep in a car.

Housing first is the best solution, but we also need humane solutions for short term homelessness. The "I left in the middle of the night and need a few days to get my bearings because things could go any humber of ways" type stuff. Shelters are so intimidating and have a reputation for being hostile to those that need them.

My college had a food bank, and as I think of this, they really could've had a shelter for students as well. Just a few dorm rooms done simple with literature on resources where if you need to stay there a few days you can. Instead I wasn't allowed to sleep on a student's couch for more than two consecutive nights.

One of the most humane solutions is also the most economically efficient. Early intervention programs like rent/utility assistance are significantly cheaper in the long run than trying to rehabilitate people who have already lost everything and have a litany of health issues because of it. If conservatives really want to save money, they should be embracing "an ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure." Instead, they're stuck in wanting to SEE the desperation before even considering helping. Safety nets are major economic stimulus in the long run because it's much easier to attempt entrepeneurship if you aren't making a life and death gamble. But something tells me the currently wealthy know this and don't want competition popping up.

Then of course we also need to fix affordability issues, because unaffordable necessities put everyone at risk.

My point is that even if you mostly just care about efficient government and economic growth, you should still come to similar conclusions as "bleeding heart liberals." Conservatives don't come to those conclusions not by economic arguments, but because they fail to see the merit of collective problem solving. They want to have their own little castle with all their stuff that they can defend under penalty of death. We pretend the argument is about feasability and cost effectiveness, but the real issue is that they don't think that any proposal that would take anything from them or require giving is an option. That's why you see the economically destitute and ultra wealthy in an unholy alliance. Both of those groups are prone to wanting to circle the wagons and consider only the wellbeing of people in their little circle -- the poor out of desperation, and the wealthy out of possessiveness. Everyone not in their little circle is someone else's problem.

This college doesn’t have the power to fix homelessness at the societal level, but they did have the power to do this. It’s a pretty awesome story.

That last paragraph hits really close to home for me. I'm like super privileged currently, but have been homeless while I was going to college. Sleeping in my car or any friend who would let me crash on their couch or closet floor. It really sucks and it's taxing physically & mentally.

Like a small jail cell would've been preferable to my car on cold nights. And yet I see so many people that have never experienced it properly claim that people need to earn it to feel better about themselves. Like fucking no they don't Trevor! Tell you what, you go try and sleep in the cold for a few nights and tell me how productive you are the next day!

You are totally correct, but there is something else: There are limits to everybodies agency. If you're somewhere in a college administration, you can't reroute those AI billions into housing for students. That's not going to happen. But you can try to help struggling students with the tools and powers you have and if it's a parking lot where they can sleep without fear that robbers or police will harass them, that's good! If you find a way to give leftover food from the cafeteria to hungry students, that's also great - even if there shouldn't be hungry students at all.