How to fix it? Let housing prices fall, subsidize housing for homeless people who need it at lower prices. I suspect that the current housing frenzy actually forced people whose situations were marginal pre-COVID into homelessness.

Put it this way – a friend was able to rent an apartment in coastal Carlsbad during the bottom of the 2008-9 crisis/correction. Rent was $850 per month, on the west side of I-5 (the only down side was that it was near the rail line, so there was a lot of train horn noise early in the morning). It’s probably $1600-2000 per month now, and incomes haven’t doubled since then for many people.