Much is made of increasing shelter capacity for homeless people across the country. But what if many of them simply don’t want to be sheltered?

It is a conundrum playing out in multiple cities across the country, particularly in West Coast states. Portland, Oregon, for example, has more than 6,600 homeless people, and it does not have the shelter capacity for all of them. But that doesn’t matter because several homeless shelters are under capacity, with empty beds going unclaimed.