I think we know too little. The Nature article is completely unhelpful. The LessWrong post is not particularly useful.
From everything I have seen, the risks to kids of Covid are on the order of the risks of a home with a swimming pool. And no one freaks out about sending their kids to friends homes with swimming pools. At this level, even if the vaccines are very safe it likely doesn’t make sense. The logic is that a kid has a diminishing chance of exposure to the disease with a very small chance of serious consequences from getting that disease, compared to a 100% chance of being exposed to the very small risks of the vaccine. I’m interested in having this intuition proven wrong, though.
I also don’t buy that there is a causal relationship between high living costs and high homelessness. As a Bay Area resident, it’s pretty clear that people don’t go from “can’t afford a home” to “homeless” – they go from “can’t afford a home“ to ”resident of Boise”.
Someone else made this point on a post I read recently, but I can’t remember where (Maybe it was Bryan Caplan?) But it extends the observation above as follows:
The Bay Area (and other high-cost areas) are, all else being equal, desirable places to live. People don’t live here primari... (read more)
The problem with your "resident of Boise" theory is that it costs an ungodly amount of money to move, all of which must be paid upfront. Moving out of state is even worse, because it often means transferring jobs. This is a huge barrier for a lot of people, and for many its utterly prohibitive.
Then there's the fact that homelessness generally feels like a weird transitional phase, and you bear it with as much grace as possible and hope you have kind friends.
My father is a very soft-hearted person, and ever since I was a child he has let people stay with hi... (read more)
It's not true that people move out of the state when they become homeless. Because their friends and family are here, they often stay. 75% of the homeless people in San Francisco are from here. The housing price matters because poor people here are generally only able to stay because of things like rent control, so once they lose their housing (for example through an Ellis eviction or a fire), it's very difficult for them to get housing in the city again. So if they want to live in the city where their support network is, then the only option may be to liv... (read more)