I wonder how you would have turned out as the child of a single parent mentally ill drug addict? I'm assuming that the 5 year old you would have pulled yourself up by your bootstraps (instead of being beaten with them), and you would have succeeded in registering and paying for yourself to get an education, right?
I'm from a family where people think it's OK to smoke while pregnant, my parents divorced when I was 7, and I grew up in a formerly communist country (which is still doing pretty badly 20 years later). I got pretty far on hard work and brains, and I stand for what I wrote earlier.
EDIT: My point is that there are people from crappy families who still manage to get very far in life. There is such a thing as individual responsibility.
My point is not that there are no lazy people who don't take responsibility for themselves. Nor does it sound like your situation is even close to my example of a mentally ill drug addicted single parent who beats his child. I do recognize that there are lazy assholes out there.
My point is that in between those two extremes exists the majority of homeless people who are mentally ill and who got to that place because of circumstances beyond their control. If you believe that the majority of homeless people fall into the lazy asshole category, then I'm sorry but you're delusional. We as a society should expend energy and resources fixing this problem at its root, and not just brushing it away into a new neighbourhood each time it becomes gentrified.
> We as a society should expend energy and resources fixing this problem at its root
This raises an interesting question: what is the root (I'm genuinely asking)? It seems like a hard question along the lines of "what makes people mentally ill?". While I'm against permanent welfare, I wouldn't mind if my taxes went to curing these people and making sure they become functioning, productive members of society. I don't really know how or if we can do that.
