No one would do this out of need.
I'm quite sure it's been done by many people out of need and don't doubt that many are doing it now.
OK, let me clarify. By "this", I mean his actual set-up. He wasn't a guy sneaking into an empty box to get out of the cold. Clearly he was far from homeless.
By 'like this guy', I mean someone who had the dough to pay for the rental, his food, his tv, his phone and internet service, the equipment to build it out. And, he qualified to move into an apartment a little bit later, so he had cash for first, last and security. It's an attention-getter, but for his ingenuity in making it work in such a small space. It strikes me as a gimic or something he did for fun to show it could be done.
So, truly homeless people aren't what I had in mind.