But then again its well established how detrimental a homeless population hanging around areas can be. For business, for property values, for crime rates, for sanitation, for blight, for et al
1. Caused by public perception. 2. Caused by public perception. 3. 
(I must research this, although some homeless people may work as spotters). 4. If the homeless cannot use a public restroom. 5. Public perception, vandalism by the homeless and hooligans, etc..
I take it you've never worked or lived in a city with a lot of homeless people. Especially one where a good number of them are homeless because they're minor offenders that the jails didn't have room to hold or mentally ill people who aren't getting treatment and/or skipped off their medication. You've never had some disturbed guy hang around all day every day stalking children, never had someone scream and spit at you because you wouldn't let them turn your workplace into an apartment, never had your wallet snatched when you were dumb enough to help out a panhandler, never given someone money for a sandwich or bus fare and watched them go off into a liquor store (or worse).
Sympathy is good. But it's a problem that needs to be addressed on a societal level, on the level of providing accessible and decent mental health care, work programs to help people get back on their feet, services for the disabled, a VA that doesn't systematically hide and marginalize crippled veterans, shit like that. Saying, "Oh, it's so cruel to not let people sleep on city benches..." is
completely missing the point. Perpetuating homelessness is not helping. If you really cared that much, you'd be volunteering or helping to fund a shelter instead of whining about cities doing stuff like that as if you had the moral high ground.
It's also damned hard to have sympathy for some of these people when you talk to them about services for the homeless and they complain about shit like having to check in at a shelter by 4pm or so if they want dinner and a bed there that night.
Maybe it's different abroad. I don't remember this sort of thing happening in NZ, Oz, or Scotland--not that I didn't see homeless folks, but that half of them didn't seem to be trying to con you into giving them money for drugs or alcohol, or two bad minutes away from trying to stab you for change. :I
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14900677 times)