It shows that you have public services that work so well that they are worth using to someone for whom money is no object.

I’ve seen this personally. Locally, the bus system runs so slowly that only the most desperate people take it. I don’t feel safe riding that bus. It took multiple hours to get to work.

Meanwhile, I used to live in a college town where the bus hits the stops every five minutes. Everyone uses the bus because it’s so convenient, and there’s no reason to feel uncomfortable riding one because the people who ride the bus are just regular people.

Why do they ride it? Because the city has functioning public transportation. Build services that are worth using.

Apparently Japan also has a homeless problem, I don’t recall how bad. But they have a culture that shames them so bad that they go to extreme lengths to mask their homelessness.