While "Empathy for the homeless" can situationally mean talking nicely about them, it also means stopping, blocking, and undoing directly terrible actions against the homeless.
Bulldozing peoples' stuff is in fact pretty bad.
Having laws against giving money to people is in fact pretty bad.
Putting hostile architecture everywhere is in fact pretty bad.
People make decisions, over and over again, to not just hurt homeless people, but also hurt the people trying to help homeless people.
Stopping people from doing that is called "empathy for the homeless". It's called that because saying and feeling bad things about people is part of the process of hurting them. It's how people agree who is and isn't okay to hurt. By stopping group efforts to make things worse, you only have to worry about random individuals trying to make things worse for other random individuals. Which is unstoppable but untargeted.
Bulldozing peoples' stuff is in fact pretty bad. Having laws against giving money to people is in fact pretty bad. Putting hostile architecture everywhere is in fact pretty bad. People make decisions, over and over again, to not just hurt homeless people, but also hurt the people trying to help homeless people.
Stopping people from doing that is called "empathy for the homeless". It's called that because saying and feeling bad things about people is part of the process of hurting them. It's how people agree who is and isn't okay to hurt. By stopping group efforts to make things worse, you only have to worry about random individuals trying to make things worse for other random individuals. Which is unstoppable but untargeted.