alt Hacker NewsNo, Appalachia's sufficient to negate that hypothesis, but it doesn't mean the people currently complaining about homelessness aren't also making judgements on racial grounds. A large part of the illegibility of Oakland to outsiders is mistaking other people's cultures for urban decay.
If other peoples' cultures seem indistinguishable to outsiders from urban decay, then those cultures are probably pretty unpleasant, and it's a good reason to not want people who follow those culture to be around in your urban area.