Anecdotal but per ABC news report last night: several residents interviewed on camera stated that drug use and homelessness were both "big problems" and scoffed at the use of $20 million for heated sidewalks
Some people do not see homelessness as a problem because it tends to hide in plain sight. It is just there. City governments do not talk about it much becuse it is bad advertising. The homeless are walked around and stepped over like obstacles that are avoided to get from one place to another.
The problem will not not go away. It grows as alcohol and drugs burn out the population. The US is not far behind Russia as a country with a subset of early death in a faction of society that is inconveniet and tolerated for some reason. Population despair is a real thing and it is coming like a freight train.
Washington has no answers because it is the source of the problem.