...Well Don...Maybe swathes of empty shops throughout Australia could be purchased by Government, handed over to the homeless with a similar to HECS loan, for renovation into domestic living quarters, creating a market for cheap alternative housing! This is less than a stupid idea!

diver dan, yes it is stupid to believe that government is some kind of magical benevolent economising machine, when
a) there is no basis for this belief in reason or evidence; it simply and perpetually ignores the costs which disprove it;
b) government is by far the single biggest cause of homelessness by all its attacks on productive activity in general, and employment and housing in particular;
c) its advocates don't have the most basic understanding of the economic issues they are trying to solve by anti-economic means
d) they display fake moral superiority by being unwilling to fund voluntarily what they are trying to get others to fund under compulsion.

There's the non-stupid answer to your stupid question: You're not willing to fund it - why should others? Why don't you stop doing what's causing the problem in the first place?

Well JKJ:

...I believe our Government does actually have a responsibility to support the underprivileged in our communities. Evidence abounds to the truth of this particular belief; one hundred billion dollars invested into social services PA, are but one of them! Another of course, is HECS funding loans for university students, which is not a concept without precedent, and would be fair to conclude, would be a very practical solution to increasing of homelessness due to (as you correctly state), a Government policy of manipulating a property market, which aids foreign investment (which artificially inflates property prices), over social responsibility!

...Your criticisms of a practical idea I may have glibly proffered, is ambiguous; but I assume you are not in favor of the concept of responsibility of housing the homeless, falling onto the shoulders of our Government! But Don Aitkin’s article does decry the wasted potential of swathes of empty shops in CBD’s across Australia; this glaring waste of a potentially valuable housing resource, is obscene IMO

Wanting something to be true does not mean it is true.

I see you confuse investment with consumption. You can clarify your confusion over these basic economic concepts by simply paying yourself at a loss for the accommodation that you think the homeless should have. What could be more "practical"?

Diver Dan when you use the term government it seems to imply government funds itself.

Why not say we'll get Imajulianutter and everbody else who pays tax to fund whaterever great new idea proposed by some unrealistic dogooder thinks might help somebody.
In this case please wait until me and my mates have bought up all those rundown cbds.

Grumpy codger alert!