that these solutions, while they have proven more effective than the conventional approaches, strike people as unfair and thus are extremely difficult to implement. That's part of why I like that article so much, he recognized the same problem with the emissions testing: it strikes people as unfair, so even though it's thinking outside the box and is most importantly effective, there are going to be serious problems implementing it.

As to other downsides of the homelessness thing, you may well be right, I'd just like to see how it worked in practice on a larger scale first. 'Cause the current approaches to homelessness have plenty of drawbacks too, even if it created other side effects, it might still be better in the long run, just depends on the political will and the cost/benefit analysis.