What we need for the bums in the streets are what we had in the 1950s -- large, state-run mental institutions that operate like prisons for those unable to live up to the most minimum set of society's demands. It's the only way to improve the quality of life for everyone else, short of simply exterminating the bums. Those who don't want to be carted off to one of these institutions will get their act together, or get out of Dodge. Mentally ill street-people, who are mostly alcoholics and drug addicts, cannot be allowed to live on the streets in a civilized country.
We also need harsher sentences for drug users. Forced imprisonment or treatment. You don't just get to go back into society and find some way to get more and more money for drugs.
and I say this as the brother of someone that was a useless junkie. There's no other alternative.
Many of those street people had homes until they got hooked on drugs and alcohol. I don’t understand how they can let themselves fall that far to the point of living like dogs in filth, relying on handouts and government welfare. Where’s the dignity, the self respect and respect for others? Missing, I think. However, government run “institutions that operate like prisons” are just that; prisons. Anyone could be thrown in the dungeon for any reason if we allowed the state to operate this way. Now that I think about it, sounds a bit like a concentration camp. Disallowing homeless encampments on public streets would be a good starting point to fixing this situation. If you look under a certain bridge in L.A. County, you’ll see on the Culver City side a clean walkway but the other side is a dirty, human sludge encampment; reason why is because Culver City doesn’t allow homeless camps on the street and the other city does.
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