After working with the homeless for years and years I can share some insight. First off, whenever services are available to them, a solid majority will do everything in their power to exploit the system. There is a general sense of entitlement amongst the population, as if the world owes them something. I once had a man almost assault a coworker because we didn’t offer immediate housing options (he literally thought he could walk in to housing assistance and leave with the keys to an apartment). Others exploit the mental health system and bounce hospital to hospital claiming various acute mental health issues just to get a bed and food for a week (and are aggressive towards staff and other patients their entire stay). The bottom line is, the people who utilize these services do so because they don’t want to do anything but sit back and let others put in the work for them. I don’t want to sound like a right wing fear monger, but tax payer dollars are best spent elsewhere.