Fining people who have no money is just the way a mindless bureaucracy functions.
How you deal with homeless people depends primarily on why they are homeless. Mentally ill druggie vs working class person bankrupted by medical bills and destroyed by bill collectors?
I have a HS classmate, he and wife are retired teachers. Her cancer treatments did them in. They had to move out of state and do everything under a relative’s name, owning nothing in their names and going by a different last name when possible. They are conservative, educated and responsible people. If they had not been able to do this they would be homeless. Some people don’t have family that could or would assist in such a manner.
That is what bugs me about these times, the destruction of the nuclear family. Families are smaller, and uncaring about extended family. Siblings, if any, pitted against each other. Parents giving up on angry children who go astray. Sad.
I got divorced in Japan, ended up back in the states homeless because of it.
Stayed in a homeless shelter FULL of druggies and alcoholics (for $210/month, which I didn’t have, so I ended up spending 2 hours/day 6 days a week burning the bedbugs off of the bunks).
Was there long enough for USVets to pick me up. Took them a year and 1/2 to find me a place to stay.
(All of the time when I was rarely on here is when all of that was going on.)
I absolutely despise drugs (and no sympathy for users/addicts), and stopped drinking years ago (well, maybe take a sip every once in awhile, but not very often).
So, I have seen pretty much everything that has been described by everyone here and everywhere else about homeless.
BUT, not all of us are like that, although, the majority that I have seen are.
Hopefully sometime soon, I will be able to get away from this hellhole and get back to my home turf (Texas).
Oh, with the help of Bupropion (HCL, whatever that is), I am down to 1 cigarette a day.. of course I had been smoking 3 cigs a day for a few years. Trying to totally quit now.