The author of the meme isn’t a utilitarian, but I am. “A simple, cost-neutral way to reduce homelessness by 90%” is an obvious policy win, even if it’s not literally “ending homelessness”. How to help the 10% who are completely unhousable (due to their sanity or morality or behavior, etc) is a hard problem, but for goodness’ sake, we can at least fix the easier problem!
Housing first schemes seem to pay for themselves, though [1, 2].
My point is that those schemes don’t work for everyone—which is not to say they’re a bad idea, but they’re not going to end homelessness.
The author of the meme isn’t a utilitarian, but I am. “A simple, cost-neutral way to reduce homelessness by 90%” is an obvious policy win, even if it’s not literally “ending homelessness”. How to help the 10% who are completely unhousable (due to their sanity or morality or behavior, etc) is a hard problem, but for goodness’ sake, we can at least fix the easier problem!