That’s because homeless shelters are dangerous and unpleasant for all sorts of reasons:

I spent most of my time homeless out on the street. It wasn’t until the very end of my homelessness that I ended up in a shelter. And I found out that a lot of what I was afraid of was true. I never found out what a body louse was until I got into the shelter. You know, I had my shoes stolen, just like people said you get your shoes stolen, although I will say that there were three people in the shelter who offered to give me a pair of shoes after that happened.

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Hi, yeah, I was homeless in Berkeley, and I found it very, very difficult to go in at the times that they wanted us to go in and to leave at the times that they wanted us to leave. It was difficult because it was exhausting. You had to leave whether it was rain or shine. And a lot of people had nowhere to go. And so you would find women that were just, you know, sitting outside the shelter at all hours of the day, waiting for the shelter to open up again.

And then, you know, when it was open up again, you had to be in there by a certain time. I was dealing with both mental illness and substance abuse, and I think people forget that with substance abuse, you don’t have much control. You need help, you really need help, and you can’t necessarily come in without having alcohol on your breath.

You can certainly not drink while you’re in the shelter. I’ve been sober for a few years now, but at that time I just, I wasn’t able to do what they wanted me to do and to come in at that time.

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Hi. Nobody has addressed the thing about animals. And I just want to say, when I was homeless, I had a dog. I used my dog as protection because I was just a single young woman on the streets. And, you know, they wouldn’t let him in shelters. They - you couldn’t have an animal, and I needed my dog. I mean, my dog was kind of my family. And so we slept outside because I didn’t want to have to give up my dog.

https://www.npr.org/2012/12/06/166666265/why-some-homeless-choose-the-streets-over-shelters

This site goes over it in more detail: https://brightenthecorner.org/2023/02/12/why-some-people-avoid-homeless-shelters/

Sexual assault is also a big problem in shelters. Here’s the ACLU on abuses going on in shelters in Orange County, CA: https://www.aclusocal.org/en/press-releases/aclu-uncovers-horrific-conditions-sexual-harassment-oc-homeless-shelters