In the United States at least, your local government's public hearings for new housing developments kinda begs to differ.
People will demand the homeless be eliminated from their area while simultaneously opposing development of housing or shelters for the homeless in their area.
So maybe you're right though: they don't hate the apartments more, they simply can't make up their mind on which they hate more.
Aside from zoning laws, there's the lack of a unified federal intervention. This prevents any one area from addressing the local homeless issue because any area that takes steps to address it will consequently absorb more homeless individuals from other places in the country. For example, if a city in California develops a program to house any homeless individuals, then homeless individuals from other cities and states will be more likely to go to said city to get housed. Even worse, there are states that would actually pay for their transportation. What would happen is that either the city would have to solve a much larger homeless problem as new homeless move into town, or the initial wave of homeless people will be house while the new arrivals and homeless will stay homeless, leaving a continued homeless problem.
I don’t think anybody thinks that.
In the United States at least, your local government's public hearings for new housing developments kinda begs to differ.
People will demand the homeless be eliminated from their area while simultaneously opposing development of housing or shelters for the homeless in their area.
So maybe you're right though: they don't hate the apartments more, they simply can't make up their mind on which they hate more.
So it sounds like zoning laws are the problem?
In some cases. But even proposed changes to zoning laws can get this kind of opposition.
Aside from zoning laws, there's the lack of a unified federal intervention. This prevents any one area from addressing the local homeless issue because any area that takes steps to address it will consequently absorb more homeless individuals from other places in the country. For example, if a city in California develops a program to house any homeless individuals, then homeless individuals from other cities and states will be more likely to go to said city to get housed. Even worse, there are states that would actually pay for their transportation. What would happen is that either the city would have to solve a much larger homeless problem as new homeless move into town, or the initial wave of homeless people will be house while the new arrivals and homeless will stay homeless, leaving a continued homeless problem.
Succinctly put.
So conservative NIMBYs are the problem?
There's definitely an "I got mine, fuck you." component, yes.