> A tremendous amount of these homeless don't want to quit heroin.
Their addictions would be better managed if they lived anywhere but the street.
> They don't want to live in shelters.
They don't want to live in dry shelters.
> They want to live in a tent and shoot heroin.
No, they want to shoot heroin, and when given the option between tent and heroin, versus a dry shelter, they'll take the former.
That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer having a managed addiction, and not living on the streets. [1]
There are people with therapists, homes, loving families, and good jobs, that are also opiate addicts. They have a hard enough time breaking their addictions. In light of that, condemning someone living in a tent by the on-ramp for failing to just drop their addiction, so they can live in a shelter is lunacy.
[1] Yes, there is a small percentage of the homeless population that can't reasonably be housed, period, regardless of whether their addictions are managed. I'm not talking about them - I'm talking about everyone else.
Their addictions would be better managed if they lived anywhere but the street.
> They don't want to live in shelters.
They don't want to live in dry shelters.
> They want to live in a tent and shoot heroin.
No, they want to shoot heroin, and when given the option between tent and heroin, versus a dry shelter, they'll take the former.
That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer having a managed addiction, and not living on the streets. [1]
There are people with therapists, homes, loving families, and good jobs, that are also opiate addicts. They have a hard enough time breaking their addictions. In light of that, condemning someone living in a tent by the on-ramp for failing to just drop their addiction, so they can live in a shelter is lunacy.
[1] Yes, there is a small percentage of the homeless population that can't reasonably be housed, period, regardless of whether their addictions are managed. I'm not talking about them - I'm talking about everyone else.