The bulk of homeless people suffer from mental illness. Some don’t have families, and some do. Clearly, the ones who have families have done something to screwup the relationships such that they will not give them shelter.
On top of the foregoing, a big bunch of them are drug addicts. You can take these people, give them a nice house in the suburbs, and a healthy stipend, and every one of them would be homeless again in 6 months.
You have to understand something here: These are the absolute dregs of humanity. Someone may, due to circumstances, find himself or herself homeless. But if he or she is worth a sh*t and takes advantage of the help out there, they will not be homeless for long. It is the worthless, no-good, crazy drug addicts who find themselves homeless long term.
Imagine a feel-good homeless story where a woman escapes an abusive husband in the middle of the night. She seeks out a shelter. She then has a choice. She can find a legit job and get back on her feet. It will be hard, but she can do it. Or, she can go shoot up, pass out on the sidewalk, and give her cooter up for more drugs.
Actually, there is no choice if you are in your right mind and are worth a sh*t. Does anybody really believe you can pick out a bum living on the street and convert him to sober, employed, upstanding citizen?
Help for the homeless is a great thing, but it should not be wasted on the bums. It should be there to help those who find themselves at a low point in their lives but have the ability to get back on their feet. Period. That means they should be screened prior to receiving resources. Exclude the mentally ill and the drug addicts (though I would help the sane drug addicts after they are no longer drug addicts).
As for the majority of the bums, who clearly have no future, I have a simple solution: Euthanasia. Clearly they are in pain of some sort. We are not doing anybody any good by continuing to dump money onto the problem.
If you are too squeamish for this solution, I have an alternative. The federal government, specifically BLM (Bureau of Land Management) owns millions of acres in the west. Just fence off about, oh, 50,000 acres and turn them loose out there. The people who give a sh*t can donate money to feed them (by airdrop). But it won’t take much because the grizzlies will take care of a bunch of them.
Returned them to nature!
