Politicians fear that being generous to homeless people will attract more homeless people from other cities, causing a net increase in homeless people in their city.

I mean, if in City A the cops hassle homeless people and the only support offered is bus tickets to other cities, while City B offers good support and humane policing, I'd take the bus ticket from A to B - who wouldn't?

> I'm no where near an expert here, but at that expense, why not just give them the money?

If you give them the money then all the money goes to the people it's supposed to help and there is no cut for the middle men. But the middle men are the ones with the ability to successfully lobby for programs to exist.

It's the same sort of thing as low income housing subsidies. Landlords lobby for them because they pretend to address high rents when their actual result is to keep rents high. Or even increase rents by stimulating demand without increasing supply.

That is in fact not the primary issue.

The primary issue is: if you directly give the homeless people $40,000, the people in the lower and lower middle 1/3 economic tier are going to ask why they're not getting that kind of help - cash thrown at them - despite the fact that they're working two jobs and at least paying some taxes.

> The primary issue is: if you directly give the homeless people $40,000, the people in the lower and lower middle 1/3 economic tier are going to ask why they're not getting that kind of help - cash thrown at them - despite the fact that they're working two jobs and at least paying some taxes.

To which the obvious solution is a UBI. Which would then solve the equivalent problem with all the programs aimed at the working poor.

Also, a significant fraction of homeless will probably not be able to effectively use the money without a support structure in place. It's very likely a good sum of that money would wind up in the wrong hands and help no-one.