My work brings me into contact with a lot of these people.
Most of them are pathetic wretches. I do not endorse “destigmatization”, because I think stigma helps a few people into recovery, but I don’t endorse piling on, either.
It is a social problem that needs a solution, and as the US moves further into revolutionary times, we need some good ideas, because if the communists are not opposed, THEIR solution (moving the homeless in with you) is what’s going to happen.
The solution is to reverse the court cases that gave us the “deinstitutionalization” of the mentally ill and hopelessly addicted indigent.
Being locked up is a powerful, possibly the most powerful, incentive to get clean and stay clean or to take your meds.
Until that happens, we are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.