Funny, but I worked for 25 years in the urban jungle South of Seattle. We had problems with “homeless people” a decade or two before Seattle's problem exploded because of their liberal policies. And actually we did have bums in their 70s.
We had one guy we called the “professor” because he actually had been a professor before he retired and started having psych problems. He began living on the streets despite having a good pension. He rode a bicycle around with all of his possessions. He didn't cause any problems and he spent most of his time waving some type of anti-nuclear sign that he had made and handing out fliers that he had printed up. When he wasn't doing that he hung out at local fast food places. He didn't cause problems but he never took baths and they would get tired of his terrible odor.
The Jack in the Box had been putting up with him for months but they finally told him he wasn't welcome there anymore, because he was disturbing other customers. No one saw him for a few days and then someone found him unconscious under an overpass. The guys on another shift responded to him. Even though he had several layers of clothes on, he had gotten wet and he was very cold. When they were taking off his clothes to get him into the ambulance they found $40,000 cash hidden in his clothing. He never regained consciousness. When someone has hypothermia, you have to be very careful not to move them around very much because when the cold blood in their extremities starts flowing around their body again it often causes an arrhythmia that cannot be corrected.
So this guy retired in his 60s and lived on the streets for around ten years. People called us and the police because they were worried about him, but unfortunately he was able to answer the questions that are suppose to determine if he is competent to make his own decisions. He typically refused transport to the hospital where they sometimes have the ability to hold them for a few days. I think that they did keep him for awhile on a few occasions, but they always ended up letting him out after awhile.
Good stories, I lived in the U-District ‘75-‘76 and ‘79-‘82 but remember a mostly (almost totally) peaceful experience with few cultural, economic, or criminal problems evident in that somewhat sheltered area (I’m sure the tube has changed things). The biggest “spectator event” I remember was a young woman walking topless around Green Lake.
But serious non-innocence was creeping in. The twin demons of abortion worship and porno mainstreaming were starting to gain hold, as was destructive liberalism in general.