This article does a good job of connecting things car culture accepts as normal and beneath notice (like free parking) that actually directly feed into urban homelessness and decay.

Some good takes there:

People who gravitate to downtown do so because their supports are all within a walking distance - health care, food, shelter for a bit, government services.

Ironically, those living hand to mouth embrace the 15 minute walkable city other wealthier residents eschew. They live a sustainable lifestyle because they must.

But some arguments and conclusions are a bit weak:

Downtowns have been dying for decades due to shifting buying habits to online, to malls, to going out of town to IKEA and outlet malls.

Cleary it is not the marginalized fault, downtown’s declined has a lot to do with how the city is managed. And there are plenty of functional downtowns around the world where people buy online, Ikea and malls - so it is not their fault either.