Dr Sara Rankin, of Seattle University and a national expert on legal and policy issues about homelessness, says there was no genuine doubt about the primary driver of homelessness.

“It is the housing market – rising housing costs and the lack of affordable housing,” she says, adding that while the city has made some investments in permanent supportive housing, it could do more and still places too much focus on “temporary responses such as emergency shelters”.

“Ultimately, homelessness is a policy choice. We already know many of the evidence-based choices that reduce it and many of the counterproductive choices that fuel it,” she says.