They had a reason; money. It's always about money. The worse the results, the more time you have to spend searching for what you want, the more revenue they can generate.
You can usually trace all decisions a company makes, good or bad, back to money.
From context I gather you're from Belgium. Isn't there already OCMW/CPAS for free housing?
Just because they're from one country (assuming they actually are,) doesn't mean they're speaking from the perspective of that country. Most people will assume if you're speaking English you're from America or some such.
What do you do when it's the single mom in free housing that just wants 500EUR extra cash? Find political consensus to give her a bigger free house, with a pool, and a credit card?
You're just using a completely different scenario to move the goalposts. I believe that they're point was that imprisoning people for committing a crime in pursuit of basic survival is pretty fucking shitty.
You don't see anything wrong with your language, but shockingly, the world doesn't revolve around you. Just because you think something is fine doesn't make it true.
Resources like gold would be more accessible, y'know because it already been mined and made into things. If society collapses what few survivors there are could recycle shit like metals. The actual issue is fossil fuels. Getting to a point where you can use renewable power would be difficult with using fossil fuels for power first.
As if fruit and veg packing and processing plants are any better. As long as greedy humans are in charge people will be exploited as much as they possibly can regardless of what the industry is.
It's... It's a pun.