How about we raise the minimum wage to a living wage and build affordable housing? Give people a chance to make a better life for themselves. Homelessness is the result of not caring.
Even if minimum wage was tripled, a good percentage of homeless people would not be able to hold those jobs, because they are mentally ill, drug addicted, and in many cases, quite physically ill due to their lifestyles. Although I get your meaning, I think it’s overgeneralizing to say that ”homelessness is the result of not caring”, as is this:
They're just people, who have fallen into bad circumstances.
I taliked at length to a homeless woman recently. She told me her life story. Addictions, violence, jail time, infectious diseases, mental illness, numerous physical illnesses, abusive boyfriends on the streets, etc. She told me she would not stop doing drugs because she liked the feeling they gave her, and she described her favorite high to me. Efforts to send her for help were rejected. Bad circumstances? Yes. But there are also many whose circumstances are quite different than those who’ve simply fallen on bad times.
Walking Dead type people"? You have zombies in your city?
You live near homeless people and you’ve never seen addicts right after they shoot up? Alrighty then! I see them quite frequently and it is not a pretty sight. Sometimes I have to swerve the car to avoid them when they walk diagonally/sideways into the street with their eyes closed, or are “bicycling” backwards into traffic.
I am sad to hear about the issues in the OP. It would be nice to find a solution that involves moving these colonies away from the schools and playgrounds asap, while respecting residents’ dignity. (Where has everyone been, though, as this has been building and we knew kids were going to go back to school at some point?) But it is, IMO, unfortunately, only a matter of time until something very bad happens to a child, and then there will be a lot of finger pointing and calls for action and vigils and protests and what not, while, still, that child‘s and family’s life is ruined forever. When we “right fight”, nothing much gets accomplished. I do not like to see children walking or playing near these encampments. No way, no how. The risks are too high for them to be harmed by someone, or infected from dirty needles on the ground. I agree that we have to protect children nearby that are vulnerable.