Subject: Re: San Francisco's Doom Loop
From the comments:
On to the problem (long) at hand. As an individual, you can empathize (and I do) with other individuals and the situations they have found themselves, even if they are mostly a result of poor decisions and not catastrophe. And you are welcome to make individual decisions based on those feelings (donate to a charity, help at a food bank). But this does not scale to a functional society or city. At scale, decisions cannot be made on the basis of feelings. We can't get to a better place by thinking with a juvenile mind. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is a proverb that is truly an applicable axiom here.

The only thing that will work is to reenact (where necessary) and enforce laws that prohibit loitering, any sort of living in public spaces, etc. All those in violation must be arrested and secured for triage (no asking; telling). They should then be evaluated and transferred to a relevant facility based on status -- victim of tragedy and otherwise normal (small percentage here), addict and/or mentally ill. The latter two groups should be secured through completion of successful treatment, upon which they are released into a halfway facility (NGO, religious organization) for further acclimation into society. Some of these people may need to be kept in psychiatric facilities for the remainder of there lives.