If homeless encampments are visible, some people complain. Now the person filing this complaint is complaining that they are "hiding"? People without homes need to shelter somewhere, and public space belongs to everyone!

Let's try to have more empathy for those who lack proper housing and live on the streets, and not participate in snltching culture by reporting them to government, which ultimately doesn't solve anything but just makes the lives of people experiencing homelessness even more difficult and unpleasant by forcing them to continually relocate.

I believe this kind of hostility and intolerance from many members of the housed community contributes to homeless people often feeling alienated from the community and more likely to engage in anti-social behavior – littering, not bothering to seek out public restrooms (of which there are too few) or to keep their encampments looking neat and tidy (why bother when they'll soon be torn down or you forced to move anyway?), etc.

In other words, it's a vicious cycle of negativity. The root problem is government anti-development policies catering to NIMBYs that have made it too difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to build new housing. People who block new housing in their neighborhoods often end up with more homeless people in their neighborhoods, or if not in their immediate neighborhoods, certainly in the central business districts.

The San Francisco city government spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to supposedly help the homeless. But the lion's share of this enormous expenditure goes to well-compensated government employees and people working for non-profits getting government funding, not directly to the homeless.

In 2003, SF mayoral candidate and building contractor Jim Reid showed that tiny homes with plumbing, electricity, etc., could be built for around $10,000 each. He explained how and where they could be sited, even lived in the one he built for a month himself to show how habitable it was:

http://www.editorial.fnphoto.com/stories/2150/story.htm

A similar home could be built for every homeless person in the city out of a single year's budget of all that government spending, and have money left over.

But of course Reid's and other more libertarian approaches were ignored. Instead, 20 years later, there are more homeless people than ever, and the problem is no closer to being solved. A never-ending humanitarian disaster brought to us by Big Government statism.