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Have you seen this YT video? Simply amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7hWzqdPDk

This is the cost of de-decriminalization without concomitant enforcement of vagrancy laws.

The alternative of course is prohibition, which carries the penalties of warrantless searches, no-knock raids, asset forfeiture and other civil rights horrors.

The bottom line is there isn't any answer. Rather, there are only choices of how to manage the fact that some percentage of the population will decide that it's more attractive to get/stay wasted 24/7, even if it means sleeping in your own sh!t.

PS We live further down by the beach. I go for a jog along the river trail most mornings. I typically get cheered on by a few cracking their first beer of the morning.

We have the same situation up north on our river banks around towns/cities.

What we are doing now in California is not the answer.

It has gotten worse every year.

Two decades ago, 2 Jan 1997, I took an early retirement. My separation pay plus vacation time carry over for the new, bonus for the last year, basically equaled a year’s salary.

My CPA told me not to work and enjoy life for a year. I got a little bored and decided to volunteer for a lunch program held at a local Church with volunteers from local churches providing the food, food prep, cooking and serving.

The food was outstanding, and the quote “Clients”, were not lean and hungry. Some were very rude and had to be asked to leave. After a couple trips (once per month), I told my wife that something was wrong. The next month a so called client thanked us for the food and left me an envelope and told me to open it later.

It was from another city. It came with a free one way bus ride ticket to our city (he had used it) and a list of free services with rankings. That lunch program had a 5 star program. The Salvation Army got a one star because their food was ordinary and if you spent the night you could not drink or use drugs.

I made copies of the handout and gave them to the people in charge and other workers. I was told to stop doing that. So, I quit my volunteering and went home.

My wife, came home later after her work, looked at me and asked, “Are you okay!”

I showed her the handout. She said that she would never go there nor donate food any more. She took a copy to work and had a lunch with a female shaker and mover in our area and gave the other lady a copy of what I had brought in.

At first the other lady said that this was a fake hit piece.

Later that day she got confirmation running the program, that the handout was for real and several cities were doing the same thing. Sending their homeless to our town.The other leaders in this free lunch program said that they would continue and twenty years later it is still going on.

That program still feeds about 125-150 people every day, Mon-Friday. They are closed on Sat and Sunday. The local Salvation army serves sandwiches and soup. The Salvation Army was apparently too basic and only served about 50 “clients” on those days. No one knows where the missing 100 or so “Clients” go for lunch on Sat/Sun..