@donaldball
On 2 and 3, I do think cities have some levers to pull:
2 is all about housing supply. Cities can build more housing. That’s long and slow, but ultimately it’s zoning and city planning and development that make the difference — and those are all in cities’ court.
More proactive measures like a housing-first response to homelessness are probably hard for even mid-sized cities to undertake, maybe a state thing? But I’ll bet larger cities could pull it off.