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.