I assume safe public housing and public health care are prerequisites to universal drug decriminalization.
A component of this is minimum building standards.
Homeless is a direct consequence of socially deciding that no new housing under certain standards (and therefore building costs) can be constructed.
If we were okay with building cost- and density-optimized cubes, we could probably solve homelessness in a year.
Instead, we've decided that it's better to have minimum building standards, with the side effect that some people cannot afford such a dwelling.
Just mindlessly chasing "newer code is better", without understanding how it affects housing affordability. Or maybe it's an intentional payout to developers to let them profit from increased complexity?