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As for the original point of the thread, I see no problem with this. It's called journalism. It's about gathering facts. And there are definitely things that a reporter could experience, just like a homeless person: for example, other people's reactions to a self-declared homeless person. How your priorities change when you don't have enough to eat or, as part of an invisible subcultured, you can be preyed upon without anyone much noticing. It's about the power of observation vs. just gathering facts by asking questions.
I worked for much of the last few months at a school for homeless children; one of my jobs was driving a van to pick up the kids wherever they happened to arrange to be: at a homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, on a certain streetcorner where Mom was parking their rundown RV this week, and so on. The parents weren't always responsible, and sometimes I had to search for them in soup lines, in the shelters (and chase down that RV that wasn't always where it was supposed to be), and in the places where they hung out. (Sometimes I gave up and took the kids back to the school, where we reported the parents Child Protective Services; that usually made Mom or Dad sit up and be responsible). But at any rate, while not even pretending to be part of the scene, I learned a lot just by walking around in it and keeping my eyes open. I don't see any ethical problem in adopting a homeless persona and living in that world for a week or two and reporting my observations.
Of course, if the homeless person makes some important private or personal revelation to an undercover reporter, I would consider that somewhat unethical to use. But an undercover reporter wouldn't have to do that to write a fine story. He or she would just have to observe what is seen, and report on how his or her own mindset was affected by temporary homelessness.
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