These prevention programs have found that with a payment of several thousand dollars, aid organizations can head off someone’s homelessness. That both prevents the trauma that comes with losing a home, and saves the state or local government the potentially tens of thousands of dollars it takes to help someone after they become homeless.

But prevention has its own challenges: The aid is most effective when it goes to people imminently at risk of losing their housing, and determining exactly who that is can be tricky.

Removing capital requirement directly stops the creation of unhoused or underhoused people. Like there is no more clear way to show how capitalism requires cruelty to function as it demands those who can’t pay either die or suffer.