> Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area.

I thought this too, but it turns out that despite San Francisco's relatively high expenditures on homeless, only 10% of the homeless population was living out of state at the time they became homeless. (http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Poin...)