You might as well say "if you want a free place to stay, just mug a few grannies and go to prison". It's usually not about finding somewhere to stay. In the UK, you get help with housing anyway as part of welfare. Unfortunately there's a certain number of people frequently attending A&E who, generally speaking, have a place to stay, but don't have the care necessary to cope with their ongoing mental or physical health issues. As an example, let's take this lady encountered by Spence over at Siren Voices. No one would deny that a person with their throat cut open needs to go to A&E, but if she had been in *suitable* accommodation *with* the sort of 24/7 care she evidently requires, maybe she would be less likely to have been sitting alone with her stanley knife, in a car park at eek-o'clock in the morning, and wouldn't have needed to go to A&E at all. Unfortunately even where Social Services are competent, they're still over-stretched and underfunded, so care tends to be very hit-and-miss.