I think the actual difference, in a big picture sense, is that those countries attack these problems on a national level, which is really difficult for anything in the US by design. that other person is sort of right in that nyc offering more services/private rooms etc will not improve its situation, because this will absolutely attract more homeless people to go to nyc. the west coast and hawaii are both experiencing this effect right now.

the situation can never be resolved when every major metropolitan area is essentially in a standoff with all the others over who can be the least appealing to homeless populations. only federal intervention can fix it at this point. I don't know what the path to that is, but cities or states acting unilaterally only leads to an endlessly increasing bill for homeless services.