Basically modern "vagrancy laws" and slavery. In US the incarcerated population also serves as a source of cheap labor, which might be the reasoning behind these laws
US News
News from within the empire - From a leftist perspective
Marxist theory on the underclass suggests that the ruling class actually need a large class of underclass, unemployed homeless people. They serve a lot of functions for the upper class; slave labour, downward pressure on wages and working conditions, downward pressure on living standards, upward pressure on rent as housing becomes artifically unavilable to them.
Lastly it pits the working class against those underneath them as they literally fight each other for resources and survival. Its always a function, not a mistake that people are poor.
Marxist theory on the underclass suggests that the ruling class actually need a large class of underclass, unemployed homeless people.
They are arresting them. The US prison system employs prison labor for profit. This essentially makes them "employed" and "sheltered".
It's a drive for profit and capital accumulation, using prison labor to maintain profit rates.
The Supreme Court on Friday sided with a small Oregon town that imposes civil punishments on homeless people for sleeping in public spaces, finding that enforcement of its anti-camping rules is not prohibited by the Eighth Amendment’s protections from cruel and unusual punishment.
The 6-3 decision from the court in the case known as City of Grants Pass v. Johnson is its most significant involving homelessness in decades. It comes as cities nationwide grapple with a spike in the number of people without access to shelter, driven in part by high housing costs and the end of aid programs launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
So they’re gonna supply everyone with free housing right?