It is better to give to homeless shelters and food banks.
For example, it can't be all or nothing. You shouldn't be kicked out/lose all support by getting a job or a raise. Assistance can be reduced, but it should be something like pulling back $.5 for every dollar earned over since level.
Whatever limit should also be index to inflation.
An example of how to do everything wrong is what we did with SSI and Medicare for people with disabilities. Means test set in the 70s, no inflation adjustment, and all or nothing.
Since American political parties are utterly financially reliant upon donations from investors with property portfolios, you're rarely if ever able to vote against their interests as a group.
If the US were democratic like Finland rather than being an oligarchy then it might be possible, but at the moment, 60-70% of US voters craving single payer healthcare isn't enough to make that happen and that would only hit a specific group of investors. A finland style "housing for everybody program" is a political pipe dream given the damage it would do to donor portfolios.
The best homeless shelters have programs targeted at helping people graduate into apartments. They have social workers and counselors that try to help people overcome addictions. They partner with charities that collect donated home goods and turn them into a "free store" so that when someone graduates into an apartment they are able to furnish it. This is how the shelters in my area operate, but many shelters do not have the resources to offer this many resources.
The best food banks do not question your level of need, but offer food and hygiene supplies to anyone who asks. If someone owns a car and home but has run across hard times, these no-questions-asked resources help them make do without losing their car or their home.
Giving to homeless shelters and food banks helps us to have better homeless shelters and food banks. Shelters that have more resources are able to offer more to those in need, including helping people graduate to stable living conditions.
It's also just institutionalizing homelessness rather than trying to address the cause of the problem: refusing to give (or subsidize sufficiently) people who need houses.
> The best homeless shelters have programs targeted at helping people graduate into apartments.
The capacity and cost of this is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the problem with homelessness we face today. It's nice, it's good that there are some resources available, but it's not going to lessen the overall problem of homelessness.
For all of time, there will always be a subset of people unable to work. Homeless people aren't just homeless, they're jobless, many permanently so. Due to mental illness, disabilities, drugs, etc.
Ultimately giving these people houses does not solve the problem, because they will still be very unsuccessful in a capitalist system. You need a job to survive. What happens if you don't have work?
We don't have a solution for this. Typically, we do bandaids. Retirement funds for those who can't work, medicare, social security. That helps a bit for those people who did work but no longer can.
SOME homeless people can be "trained" to be ideal capitalistic laborers. Most can't, and never will be, because of physical limitations of their person. We don't know what to do with them. Previously, we just institutionalized them. Disqualified them from society. That was awful, so now we let them participate. But they fail, and always will fail.
Ultimately, there is no way around it regardless of the solution you choose. There will always be a subset of people that cannot work and will never work.
Let's say my marginal tax rate is 50%. That means I could give $10 to a homeless person, or $20 to a homeless shelter, both costing me the same amount.
If someone has highly appreciated stock that is going to be sold, can donate it (e.g. through a DAF), and has the highest possible marginal tax rate in California, that person has the choice to donate $10 to a homeless person or ~$80 to a homeless shelter, both costing the same amount.
Watch this stand-up comedy bit which deals with this topic
But they often don't want to go there because of their substance abuse issues as there's typically a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol.
Too add further stress to overwhelming anxiety, many people who work in homeless shelters are also, unfortunately, narcissistic bullies on a power trip.
Nobody gives a fuck about the security situation of homeless people though and their reluctance to use shelters is usually chalked up to them being drug addicts unwilling to deal with the no drug mandates.