I agree, there’s a balance. I don’t think criminalizing homelessness is a good policy, but I also don’t like situations I’ve seen where homeless people take over parks, block sidewalks, or turn a whole street into a ghetto hellhole with burnt out abandoned RVs and trash. I understand these people are in dire straits but it’s not fair to deny everyone else use of public spaces like parks. A group of 20-25 people basically occupied a park near where I live in Denver for two weeks until the city finally kicked them out - ringed it with RVs, broken down cars, trash and debris, people sleeping on picnic tables, noise and commotion at night, open drug and alcohol use. Another thing is that wouldn't have been tolerated in the higher income areas of the city for even one day, and it is blatantly against park usage laws. I also know people who had situations like a group of random transients came and built a tent shanty directly behind their house in the alley, blocking their gate and parking area, doing a bunch of shady shit with bikes and making noise all night, and the city/police response was “well you should talk to them and ask them to leave”.

It’s amazing to me that the US is at the point where we have shanty towns taking over public areas. Unfortunately, our current solutions are an awful in-between where cities tolerate encampments for a while, then do a “sweep” where they clean the area off, kick everyone out and throw away possessions if people don’t remove them first. Then the people who had been living there just go to a different area of the city and nothing is every really solved.