Are they expected to save all the homeless by locking them up for their protection on cold nights?
They could probably spent all their time doing that and pack the place out.
And if the guy refuses to go, they can't force him.
It's unfortunate that this happened, but there are usually places for them to go but as was said before, they don't want the obligation that comes with it so take their chances.
“Are they expected to save all the homeless by locking them up for their protection on cold nights?”
We did it in the past why not? Besides we find homes for Syrian rapefugees we can sure has hell have a drunk tank again.
Some of them they transported to shelters (women and family groups with boys under 12: I served them as a staffer at a Christian women's shelter for several years), homeless adolescent and adult men they put in the "drunk tank," some they just crammed into regular cells, or even put on cots at the precinct headquarters.
They preemptively transferred longer-term inmates down to the State Correctional Institutions to make room for the storm-emergency crowd.
They saved lives. They saved my elderly neighbor Joe R. repeatedly: when he was sober he was truly a model citizen, when drunk he wandered about and was exposed to dozens of potentially fatal hazards.
Joe did best at SRI Mercer, where --- sober and "fully clothed and in his right mind," --- he actually functioned as a trusty or even a counselor for others. A talented man; a sensitive man; a drunk.
So yes, they should pack the drunk tank to save men from freezing to death.
Tell me what's the alternative.
Even if they could, the ACLU and the liberals would immediately move to stop them, just as they did with the mentally ill. Reform was needed at the institutions but the answer was not to dump them on the streets in the name of freedom.