Capitalism requires there to be a threat of what happens if you "don't work hard enough" or don't play ball with those in power. Nevermind that most homeless people aren't that way due to laziness or anything they did wrong, just unlucky situations or medical debt or being laid off at an inconvenient time or something.

It would be far cheaper to our country to have free housing, UBI, universal healthcare and social programs everywhere than what we are doing now, but what we are doing now makes about 1,000 people INSANELY wealthy at the expense of the other 342,000,000 people in the country, so that's what we keep doing for some stupid reason.

Maybe one day everyone will wake up and stop enabling systems that create this shithole.

We need societal-level solutions to homelessness. We need housing, free healthcare, free mental healthcare, criminal justice reform, and more. But until we can do that, the reality is, concentrations of the homeless are associated with higher crime, reduced patronage of businesses, and decreased property values.

It super duper sucks, but homelessness is a really difficult problem for cities and property owners they aren't equipped to address. Since they can't fix the problem, they instead focus on keeping the problem away.

It's all so fucked.

they're still sticking to the trope that the homeless are lazy, uneducated bums; at best they're what happens to good citizens after falling into addiction.

they all WANT to be there, but we definitely don't want them!!!

but that narrative should be falling apart as conditions deteriorate...

but you know, american education lol.

Lemmy lol. Answer is simple. Everyday folks don't like seein' them, as they consider them lowlifes. City is doing "something" about it, so city is doing good. There are shelters, so it's not like these people have no options.

Everyday folk don't think about shelters being overcrowded, homeless being alcoholics/druggies just to cope with their situation and thus not being able to use shelters, or the fact that I've seen software devs, here on lemmy, mention being homeless or being in the past.

Most people are reactive, not proactive. They see dirty homeless person, they feel yucky, they tell said person to gtfo without thinking about the fact that it's a person in the first place.

Because people are more comfortable letting homeless people starve or freeze to death than they are with shooting them.

Same reason people are happy to buy ham from the grocery store but would feel uncomfortable slitting a pig's throat.

The bourgeois don't want to look at the plebians.

Cruelty is definitely a big part of it but also NIMBYism. If we don't see the homeless people, we don't have to think about them and try to find solutions.

The cruelty is the point. They'll say a homeless person doesn't deserve a fee hundred bucks a month to get back on their feet, but they'll spend 100 grand a year per person to make them more miserable. It's just good job security (and satisfaction) for the police unions.

Yes, I really can't wrap my way around their way of thinking.

There are people who have such big issues in life, and such bad options, that a bench in a park is their best option for a place to sleep. That is horrible, and something must be done. And politicians think removing their best option is a solution?

If people can show enough compassion to invest in getting these people back on their feet, if you are really just going to ignore them - at least to that. Let them be.

If we're talking drunk people causing issues, and they need to learn to go home instead - then I'd get it. Not my preferred solution, but I'd get it.