Homeless people are a problem to themselves and others. Are some of them good? Sure. Are some housed people assholes? Also true. Does their moral state really matter to their situation? Not in the slightest.

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Sympathy for the homeless is one of the primary problems that will endlessly perpetuate this issue. When you love the homeless you can't understand that a plurality of them are insane and / or severe drug users, or lack any capacity to care for themselves or plan ahead.

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So far, the sympathetic side of this equation has been to continuously complain about how we are all so cruel to the homeless population by building spikes to keep feces off our establishments or ignore them because we are not trained to deal with mental basket cases who will take any opportunity to latch onto you should you show them the barest amount of kindness. (If you ever give one money, be prepared for them to stake out your path for all eternity)

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Building shelters won't work, these have rules, and worse, other homeless people, many of which (as stated) are insane. So many homeless people refuse to stay at a shelter: the criminal homeless won't because of the rules and the safe homeless won't because of the criminal homeless.

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Housing them won't work, because they lack the ability to see past the next 24 hours and quite a large necessity is having a minor degree of foresight. Like it or not, even public housing has to have some rules or it will be as bad as a homeless encampment on the streets.

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Providing more money and services may deal with the symptoms, but its not a long term solution. Unless they are housed and have some capacity to provide for themselves, they are going to continue to be an issue wherever they are. In addition, you'll never solve this issue with more money, because it becomes a free for all wherever the moneys flowing and you'll get a homeless migration from across the country (like California) until the system equalizes and homeless are just as bad off from over promised programs with strapped resources.

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One is not a Nazi for realizing that these people bring their problems with them, wherever they go. The answer is to lock them in asylums and prisons, and on a case by case basis evaluate (objectively, without sympathy) their ability to care for themselves and abide by the bare minimum of social rules necessary to protect themselves and others. No, this isn't some authoritarian plea to force them to cut their hair or abide by sexual norms.... its the unthinkable request not to shit in the street.

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The solution:

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The ones who are mentally stable need to be given better assistance and moved to places where they can actually live. (If I have a taco bell workers skill set I'm not going to be able to survive in Manhattan, period, and there is no point in pretending I can) If I get my shit together and get a high paying job, I can always move back. Call me crazy but this seems like a better position than an eternal limbo state. Yes gentrification is real. You're an idiot if you think you can somehow stop it, so the real question is how to manage it. All the rent control in the universe isn't going to create new housing, and the market will eternally find a way, wizards of wall street style.

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The drug users need to be imprisoned and given a mandatory drug rehab, with chemical's that block drug effects. Unless of course you think it is fine that they continue to shoot heroin until they are dead in the streets, because stopping them would be cruel and/or unjust. It would also be helpful to move them to get them away from their "friends" that keep them in this state. (I highly doubt their local support structure is objectively useful to their situation if they are on the streets)

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The violent ones need to be imprisoned, and we should be able to look at trends in their behavior instead of evaluating crime by crime. If someone beats someone one time, its different than if they beat someone every month. There are some people that are simply not capable of controlling themselves or ever following an simple order (as required in any job or indeed any housing or social system anywhere) and we are fools not to realize that.

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The insane ones need to be locked in an asylum and given food and placating medication, yes to keep them in a drugged state so they are easier to manage, and don't cause problems for others. If it makes you feel better this medication could be weed. Yes this situation can be exploited, and yes there will be issues. Ask yourself, is this somehow worse than what they face in the streets every night? We somehow convinced ourselves that letting them walk the streets and get assaulted and murdered is better than being caged and receiving professional care.

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Maybe I am an evil person, but the endless moral whinging I hear about this shit doesn't seem to be helping.