If you subsidize homelessness, you get more of it

This article

The Way Los Angeles Is Trying to Solve Homelessness Is ‘Absolutely Insane’ misses the big picture in two ways:

1. It ignores the simple idea that if you subsidize anything, like homelessness, you get more of it; and
2. The NIMBY wars over zoning that raise the price of housing is one of the causes of homelessness.  

On the plus side, it describes the costs of the NIMBY wars in LA in ironic detail:

When do Angelenos want affordable housing? Now! Where do they want it? Not here!

And it documents the added cost of the zoning which reduces supply.

“If you look at the inflated cost [$500,000/unit] that comes along with all of the regulation and rules and restrictions and limitations,” Galperin said, “then basically all of this money is going to feed the beast of covering the cost of the regulations. ... We’ve created an absolutely insane system.”

PREDICTION: Nothing will get done, despite Homelessness being voters' #1 concern: "The politics of the affordable housing crisis are terrible. The politics of what you’d need to do to solve it are even worse."

Former student Mike Saint (deceased) said as much a while ago in his book NIMBY Wars: The Politics of Land Use

HT: MarginalRevolution.com