That’s true to a point, Zagadka. The problem is that the folks who share this misunderstanding about the homeless run the big cities where the homeless problem is concentrated.
San Francisco gives generous cash payments to its homeless population, and not coincidentally has one of the worst homeless problems in the country.
I must disagree. I lived in Washington, D. C., on a sub-minimum wage salary and then a minimum wage salary quite comfortably. Sure, I wasn’t living as high on the hog as others in the city, but I did just fine.
But of COURSE we know how to treat it! Give the nuts their meds and let them loose, because it’s cost effective. (Even more so on the ones who drop out of the system.) And forget rehab. Throw the book at drug possessors and we’ll have no more junkies. Once the ones we have now die.
Sadly, in a political climate like today’s, stuff like this, that affects the lives of everybody in urban areas (thru crime and quality-of-life, if nothing else), is so far off the table it may be years before it comes back.