[jonrick46]

Cleaning out the “Jungle” will only cause them to move somewhere else. The answer to the problem is to understand what needs to be done to move them from homelessness to self-sufficiency.

I learned from one troubled soul who told me about his time homeless while working with him. He said he had a wife and a child. It ended in divorce because of a drinking problem. The divorce required child support payments. He became homeless because he could not make the payments and pay rent. Next, he lost his job and he could not make child support payment and when he went to renew his driver’s license, they denied the renewal until he caught up on his child support. He never got control of his drinking problem and suffered major damage to his jaw, teeth and face due to a fight caused by his drinking. For this individual, the alcohol problem may have been the trigger point that could have been resolved by the professionals.

I have a cousin who was headed down the shoot due to alcohol. He got treatment and his problem is just a memory 35 years ago. That’s how it is done. Identify the problem and give others the job of fixing it.

[Anoreth]

That opinion won’t fly here, you’re supposed to say that the solution is to petend homeless people aren’t human.

[cherry]

an alcoholic has to do the "fixing" not anyone else...no one else can....he has to make the decision....

I truly believe that most of these chronic "homeless" don't want a regular job with regular hrs, and getting up and being active all day...

[Chickensoup]

Bull.

I am in the business.

The only person responsible for sobriety and recovery is the drunk

There are a myriad of programs to help homeless achieve sobriety and your friend did not take advantage of them.

he chose to stay drunk instead of sobering up.

[MoochPooch]

He said he had a wife and a child. It ended in divorce because of a drinking problem. The divorce required child support payments.

Sounds like the proverbial bad luck/bad choice intertwined. This seems to be a recurrent theme with so many of these people. While they might suffer universal setbacks or tragedies, certain problems they bring on themselves. All of this seems to stem from poor judgment & poor impulse control.

Unfortunately, I have relatives whom I've had to bail out in similar situations. They wreak havoc, then leave it to others to pick up the pieces.