You also cannot assume anything based on homeless count vs. population of a city. There are a lot of factors involved: the local economy and availability of jobs, rents, and other living expenses, etc. I've lived in both Portland and Eugene, and I found it much harder to be employed in Eugene, probably because it's smaller. However, Portland has a huge homeless problem, as does Seattle and other cities up and down the west coast. To imagine that Eugene has more homeless because we provide more services -- we don't --is absurd.

And this is all irrelevant, because all homeless people need shelter, regardless of where they are. And the discussion is useless, because homeless haters are motivated by bigotry and it's impossible to teach them anything about reality.