Exposure to Homeless Shelters and Support for Policy Remedies

American cities have rapidly built new homeless service facilities - shelters and supportive housing - over the last decade in response to rising homelessness. We study how voters react to these facilities once they are built and operational, leveraging a pair of statewide ballot propositions to fund new homeless services in California. We find that voters living closest to newly opened facilities became more supportive of spending on homelessness services compared to those living further away. We argue and show using survey data that new shelters increase the salience of homelessness in the minds of voters, driving positive policy feedback. We rule out the effects of positive changes in street conditions, improvements over existing land-uses, and financial self-interest as alternative mechanisms. Our findings suggest that voters can reward policy action and that NIMBY opposition may be more prospective than retrospective.