A HUD definition that privileges loners?

Interesting position paper here from three advocacy groups suggesting that the McKinney-Vento definition of "homelessness" is unfair to people who live "doubled up" in others' housing as opposed, for example, to campsites or shelters. The paper's main point is that the definition leaves out young people and families, instead favoring single adults. Might add that it seems to penalize people for maintaining strong social networks in which they can impose on friends or family at need.

Incidentally, federal homelessness and housing subsidy policy imposes a terrible bind on extended families in which one household becomes homeless while another lives in subsidized housing. Programs such as Section 8 tend to have rules against long-term guests, which means that if a family in subsidized housing charitably takes in a destitute relative, the good deed could actually be punished by eviction.

So our "safety net" programs wait too long for lives to become badly broken before offering to help fix them. So what else is new?