Must be nice to judge others from the comfort of our lounge chairs. I live in the Philly suburbs too.
Sadly I do this myself occasionally before I catch myself and think back to what my father used to say, whenever I was being judgemental of others less fortunate than myself, for one reason or another.
'Everyone at the table of the Lord gets a piece of bread (troubles), some more so than others. Be grateful you're not fat'.
It seemed to me at the time that he had a million of these old Sicilian proverbs, which at first seemed nonsense from an old uneducated man. Only later in life did I realize how wise he was on the subject of life. Basically this was a take on the old saying, 'There but for the Grace of god go I''.
I don't have the answers on homelessness. A good majority of them are are mentally ill. To just say, 'let them rot!', seems a bit perverse and cruel, especially if they can't help themselves. We've shut down all the state mental institutions across the country since it became the rage under Reagan's watch and now expect the cops, in most instances, to 'solve' the problem, which they are totally unequipped to do.
Education and experience may be different, but both can be great teachers.
No, it's not "all" mental institutions around the country that were closed- do a google search before you post something that's so incorrect. Just about every hospital has a section for this and many facilities ONLY treat mental/emotional problems.
Police are trained to deal with mentally ill people and those come in many forms. I listen to a police scanner app and hear many calls about people who are making comments or threats to harm or kill themselves. The dispatch centers receive the calls, but it's the PD and EMS who respond, usually along with a fire truck. If the person is beyond the expertise of the PD, they use the EMTs, or they call a Psych specialist/negotiator. The problem with mentally/emotionally ill people is that they're incredibly reactive and unpredictable, as well as possibly violent. I have never heard a call where someone made a comment about hurting these people, but I have heard many say something about getting them some help. Many times, it's a friend or family member who calls in about these people, sometimes it's the person having problems who calls to get help and in some cases, they get a 'welfare check' because someone is walking or running and ranting, yelling, talking to themselves or acting very strangely.
A lot of homeless are drug/alcohol abusers, some didn't have much of a chance in life and some (many) lost their job for reasons outside of their control. Programs exist for all of them, but they have to want to use these unless there's some reason they end up there because of something they have done.
