I am going to assume you are American here which I normally avoid but it is relevant to this context. Other countries do not have homelessness like America does. I know people from the war torn countries like Iraq that have come to America and been horrified by the depravity with which we treat our poorest. I have even known people that returned to their relatively dangerous home country because they were poor and found western society too alienating and heartless. So when we talk about homelessness in China I need to insist that the Chinese people do not have this culture. They are incredibly recently industrialized and still have HIGHLY isolated rural regions. I’ve seen villages only accessible by foot beyond a certain point. This may seem irrelevant because homelessness is a largely urban phenomenon but I mention it to show how prevalent their sense of communal identity still is. In recent years a wealthy urban individualist sub-culture has developed but even still few in China would say that a homeless person is at fault for their homelessness. Instead homelessness is looked upon as a failure of their government and it is because of this that homelessness in China is considerably lower than other countries of similar or even greater economic developement. To give you an idea, over 90% of families in China own a home. For the 10% that do not, rent is 30% of their income at most and usually less (though this is a recently development caused by the “Homes are for living, not for investment” act). Homelessness is low in China because the people find homelessness unacceptable and the government is able and willing to interfere with the profits of private housing investors in order to insure it does not occur. To the Chinese state, someone who is homeless is someone who’s labor goes unutilized. For the American state a homeless person is an implicit threat that keeps its laborers working.