Having been in this hidden group of homeless myself, I will let you in one one little secret. The land-use restriction argument might apply if you consider all homeless people needing housing, but on an individual level there are vacancies in every region... but they are unavailable for other reasons.
Once you strip out the (very visible) addicts and mentally ill, the real reasons for homelessness are: credit score/report, 2-3x income to rent cost requirement, and to a much lesser extent, criminal background checks.
I understand the reasoning for all of these. It's valid. It's also the cause of most non-addict, non-mentally-ill homelessness.
tl:dr; The vacancies often exist, but the credit system prejudges and denies.
(yes, I know private landlords exist who can "work with you" - they aren't the ones with hundreds of units.)
Good lord, yes. I just helped a relative of with poor credit find a place to live and it was only the luck of finding an understanding small time landlord that he isn’t homeless right now. I fear this is only going to get much worse in the future. Lots of places we applied to already automatically rejected him due to his credit score even though I offered to co-sign. Once the whole industry starts using these mechanisms to choose tenants, people with bad credit are screwed.
Once you strip out the (very visible) addicts and mentally ill, the real reasons for homelessness are: credit score/report, 2-3x income to rent cost requirement, and to a much lesser extent, criminal background checks.
I understand the reasoning for all of these. It's valid. It's also the cause of most non-addict, non-mentally-ill homelessness.
tl:dr; The vacancies often exist, but the credit system prejudges and denies.
(yes, I know private landlords exist who can "work with you" - they aren't the ones with hundreds of units.)