When talking about homeless people, many people do not realize that most homeless people are not bums. Most homeless people have jobs or are actively seeking employment. They are generally families made up of a single mother and her children.
However, there are bums. And the problem with them is very different than with other poor people. Homeless bums are generally men who have given up. Some of them are guys whose wives left them and who are hopeless and sick of paying alimony. Some of these homeless bums are people who have acquired a mental disease such as schizophrenia. However, they are almost all mentally ill. Depression counts as a mental illness.
We need to find ways to get mental treatment for these bums. For most, treatment will allow them to go back to living a somewhat normal life, thus making them productive members of society. For a few, they may need to spend a prolonged period of time in an insane asylum. However, for their sake and for the sake of everyone else, we need to get these bums off the streets and into treatment.
It is utterly foolish to let insane people roam the streets as bums. And I doubt that any bums are sane in that almost no sane person would choose to live as a bum. And a person is only a bum if they choose to be one.
I think we all realize that society will be a safer and happier place if bums are not left on the streets.
Would you rather have bums forced into treatment or left as vagrants on the streets? Post your answers to that question and your comments on this post in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. All viewpoints are welcome.