To make homes more valuable to people, maybe they can be a place to store, cook, and eat food. (You can't eat a whole turkey, you gotta cut it up) You could also sleep, store over-the-counter medication for healing. Also, almost every City RPG I see start you off as a hobo, with no house, but that just makes things annoying for others, and it makes crime easier when a bunch of unarmed/newbies are roaming around for pickpockets. To solve this, you could have apartments that are really small/stuffty in condition, but are free, and act as a starting room for them to spawn in.