It's unfortunate for this family, but as long as there are some desperately poor, you'll be able to find stories like this. If the changing face of homelessness is not actually going hungry that often, being given notice when the police are coming through to clean out the encampment, this might be an improvement over recent historical trends.
I'm disappointed with the lack of data and style reporting on homelessness as a whole. Inconsistent statistics or lack of any context makes it hard to form an opinion. The site you linked which should be a good source of data makes it hard to see data over time and inexplicably colors the map by total population, rather than fraction of population (https://xkcd.com/1138/).
Yeah, the lack of high-quality, public databases for certain issues is unfortunate.
A couple years ago I sat in on a talk by a guy in D.C. who had led a small beltway coalition for over a decade to get data processes standardized across the largest departments within the federal government. Things they achieved, that made one think the U.S. was simply moving from being stuck in the 70's to being stuck in the 80's ,were quite clearly exciting wins for him.
I'm disappointed with the lack of data and style reporting on homelessness as a whole. Inconsistent statistics or lack of any context makes it hard to form an opinion. The site you linked which should be a good source of data makes it hard to see data over time and inexplicably colors the map by total population, rather than fraction of population (https://xkcd.com/1138/).
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... it appears it has fallen over the past 12 years without much correlation to the economy.