US Authoritarianism

OK, so no one who is serious or understands the problems surrounding homelessness and mental illness is saying that we need to simply give houses to people. It can't happen for the reasons that you seem to understand - these people need both shelter AND support. That's what basically everyone is saying. "Give them houses" means "get them indoors and cared for." Nuance is lost in slogans.

But I feel that you don't quite understand mental illness. If they're on the street, nearly all those people that you described are likely suffering from mental illness. Mental illness can be something you're born with or something that develops at some point in your life. Stress is a major factor in developing mental illness and folks on the street are living in one of the most stressful situations we commonly allow people to be put in. Disabled folks (FYI it's not really cool to call physically disabled people "crippled" anymore) are hit even harder by this. Felons have to deal with having a huge stain on their record that makes things like finding gainful employment WAY more difficult and with the mental baggage that long-term incarceration leaves you with.

If you've worked with the homeless before and talked with them, you probably understand how bad it can be out there. You have to worry about holding on to your things because you have nowhere to lock them up, your feet and back ache because your shoes are shot and you slept on pavement last night, you have to worry about finding your next meal, you have to worry about having a place to sleep that's both sheltered and safe, you're itchy because it's been a hot week and a half since you had a shower, you have to worry about the person camping next to you trying to assault you for some imagined transgression, your tooth has been hurting for a month and it's just getting worse, you have to worry about cops coming to make you move all of your stuff because the people in the houses nearby are tired of looking at your tent - it just goes on and on and there really isn't an end to it. Take a person already in a rough spot (they don't have a place to live) for whatever reason (lost their job, are being abused by a spouse, run out of the house at a young age, rent went up and they can't cover it and food and one literally has to eat to not die) and then throw all this shit and more at them all day every day and it grinds them down. Being homeless takes a person on the margin and rips what little rug there was out from under them. I don't think I need to say it at this point, but being homeless will make you crazy if you're not already there. And if you're already there there's a really good chance you're going to end up homeless because it's hard to do the things you need to do to exist in society when you're also dealing with severe mental illness.

They need supportive services to exist in society the way that society needs them to. The services have to be tailored to the person and their issues that are preventing them from being on solid ground. Some people are assholes and will be assholes if they live in under a bridge, in a halfway house, in an apartment, in a house, in a mansion or wherever. But we all know the impact that homelessness has on everyone, so we must do our best to help everyone.

Some people will refuse help entirely. Can't really do much about that, but you can make sure that they're well taken care of so their problems don't become other people's problems. Someone who has access to food, water, shelter and at the very least some basic medical care is much less likely to become a blight on a neighborhood than someone who is scrounging for everything.

In an earlier comment you said "The people who protect the homeless are every bit as responsible for the problem as anyone they accuse." Personally, I blame the wealthy class for using power and influence to gradually wipe out the social safety net through tax cuts for themselves while simultaneously turning their corporations into stateless parasite nations that funnel wealth from the less wealthy classes' efforts into their own pockets, while pushing their media outlets to blame anything but the tax rate for the top earners for the homeless issues to distort public perception and placing all the blame on the people themselves. Since I work for an organization that feeds, clothes these people, am I culpable? We provide medical care, showers, laundry services, housing placement services and give out free groceries. We give them a dumpster to throw away their trash. Is all of this our fault?