The difference is they will be using the same substances but potentially much more harmful and you will have more people needlessly in prison. I don't see the positive to your argument.
There is no positive. It's a massive humanitarian crisis. Half the US homeless are in California, which spends 13 billion a year with no measurement, goals, metrics or evidence of positive results. Add in the opioid crisis, economic depression and housing shortages and you have a squalid pressure cooker of tents , crime and sanitation dangers.
