It seems that people want so badly to live in some of the nation's most expensive real estate that they are willing to be homeless. That's a choice. The quarter billion spent on them is an enabler. It encourages them to stay homeless.
I don't know that you understand the problem at all if you refer to it as a choice. Particularly if you think the alternative choice is home ownership in abandoned areas of the country's most troubled city. Owning some empty, stripped-apart house in Detroit doesn't solve anybody's problems and certainly doesn't eliminate the cost of supporting the downtrodden. Many people in Detroit who have skills aren't finding employment and are barely surviving. A property title doesn't fill your stomach day after day. And the 4-figure houses you refer to are that way because they represent more liability than asset. They need massive investment to make them liveable.
Your comment is frankly ignorant.
That, plus I hear Detroit is bouncing back a bit. The homeless would probably become jobless, there. A slight improvement, I guess.