How to cut homelessness in the world’s priciest cities

“IHAVE SLEPT on the Embankment,” wrote George Orwell in 1933, adding that, despite the noise and the wet and the cold, it was “much better than not sleeping at all”. Under the nearby Charing Cross bridge, Orwell reported that “50 men were waiting, mirrored in the shivering puddles.” Nine decades on and Charing Cross and the Embankment are once again full of rough sleepers, even during the coldest days of December. Across London their numbers have more than tripled since 2010.It is a pattern found in much of the rich world. Almost every European country is seeing a rise in the number of homeless people, including those who live in temporary accommodation, as well as the smaller number who live on the streets. Homelessness across America is in decline, but it is soaring in its most prosperous cities. Roughly 5,000 people live on the streets of San Francisco, a 19% rise in just two years.