Clearly you've never worked with the homeless...it's not the "look of poverty" as you alluded, it's really more about active drug use or untreated mental health disorders.

Some people certainly fall on hard times, but many have serious mental health disorders that for a variety of reasons they are not managing. We often require an address and lots of paperwork to provide government benefits in the US, so it isn't hard for people to fall out of the system.

Once that happens, it's really hard to find your way back. There are certainly not enough programs to help people reintegrate with society. At the same time, a homeless encampment in a neighborhood is not a reasonable solution either.

I volunteered nearly every week feeding the food and housing insecure in Philly for nearly 3 years pre-covid (I moved shortly before Covid). It was a great experience and I got to know many people that I might have otherwise walked past, and it really underscored the value of social services and lack of help available.

It also taught me that people need to be in a place to accept help. The ones that were not in that place are the ones you worry about - they have nothing to lose. Most that came to the church to be served lunch (usually 100-200) were to an extent willing to receive help. Some had bad days or would relapse into drug use, but they were generally trying to do better.

But there were other, much darker, places in the city that people unwilling or unable to accept help went. Places like Kensington in North Philly. That was a huge problem for years...it was a huge open air drug market that basically occupied that area. Finally, I think just this year, police cleared the encampments there.

It's not a great solution, but it also wasn't tenable. My point is that you should understand that not all housing insecure populations are just good people that bad things happened to. Those not in a place to get help or actively using drugs can be dangerous. I certainly would not let my son near that group, nor would I gleefully accept an encampment near my house