Some time ago I read You Can't Win[1], a 1926 memoir by a hobo-by-choice named Jack Black. He describes his life as a hobo in various cities (including SF!), and the picture he paints of the turn-of-the-century will be eerily familiar to anyone living in a major US city today: huge numbers of homeless hopelessly addicted to wine and opium (called "hop") that was cheap and easily accessible in streets and flophouses; tent cities lining the outskirts of town; entire communities of people living in that fashion and outright refusing to re-enter society.
The big difference between now and the turn of the 20th century is that back then, the law had little to no tolerance for public vagrancy. Jack Black describes dodging sheriffs, being locked up for the crimes of vagrancy and burglary, spending long stretches of time in prison and emerging completely unreformed, immediately returning to his life of encampment and crime. Even though ultimately his behavior didn't change, the law made him spend significant lengths of time removed from society.
I don't know what the lesson is here, if there is one. While a century ago their approach also didn't solve the problem, it did result in more livable cities for everyone else in the meantime. Perhaps one takeaway here is that it the problem isn't truly "solvable" given how we have structured our markets-based society.
The big difference between now and the turn of the 20th century is that back then, the law had little to no tolerance for public vagrancy. Jack Black describes dodging sheriffs, being locked up for the crimes of vagrancy and burglary, spending long stretches of time in prison and emerging completely unreformed, immediately returning to his life of encampment and crime. Even though ultimately his behavior didn't change, the law made him spend significant lengths of time removed from society.
I don't know what the lesson is here, if there is one. While a century ago their approach also didn't solve the problem, it did result in more livable cities for everyone else in the meantime. Perhaps one takeaway here is that it the problem isn't truly "solvable" given how we have structured our markets-based society.
[1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jack-black/you-cant-win