This Dec. 4, 2012 photo shows spectators viewing an elaborately decorated home for the holidays in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Each holiday season, tour operator Tony Muia takes tourists from around the world on his Christmas Lights & Cannoli Tour visiting the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge, where locals take pride in over-the-top holiday light displays. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Imagine a world without homelessness -- or tinsel.

It would cost about $20 billion for the government to effectively eliminate homelessness in the United States, a Housing and Urban Development official told the New York Times on Monday.