There's a guy with a bushy black beard that I've seen maybe three times; twice at Publix (Spanish Plaines) and once at another time. He is a musician; plays an accordion and I think guitar too. Quite talented. He has a money collection box by him and the times I've seen him, he's had a woman with a child (woman and child change), with a sign that they need help. I enjoyed his music and put a few dollars into his box.

Pretty classy way to panhandle. I give the guy credit both for originality and for the (assumed) fact he's using his talent to help others.

All we hear about every day is the shortages of available people to WORK in thousands of businesses across the USA.

It is obviously a conscious choice to remain homeless, not work and ask/pan handle other people's hard earned (WORK!!!) $$$.

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It would make sense to put them in some kind of mental institution, right or wrong
 

[I live in a major US city, and I frequently see homeless people in the streets with their pants down, talking gibberish to themselves, yelling at passersby's, and violently rocking back and forth sitting at a bus station.

They look like they need serious mental help and pose a threat to regular citizens. So, it would make sense to put them in some kind of mental institution, right?

What's preventing the city from putting them in mental institutions for treatment? To clarify, I'm not asking for all homeless people to be institutionalized, just the very obviously mentally unstable ones and the one's not mentally ill that able be able to work should live in public housing taking them off the streets
Unless one is an immediate danger to themselves or someone else, no one can make them do a thing. They have the right to refuse treatment, including medication. That is way the law is written this needs be changed and rewritten. I am in no way in agreement of letting these people live on the street they need care.

We live in a free country. More closed societies do and did put those their leaders deemed mentally ill or otherwise unwanted into places.

When l worked at the downtown Minneapolis public library there were often homeless on the benches in that library. They were sleeping. They were inside because it was freezing outside. They did have to wait for the library to open.

A few years ago I was acquainted with a woman in her 60s who was a librarian in Laguna Beach, CA. The verbal abuse and threatening gestures from homeless bums she was forced to endure daily were awful. Apparently the police could not or would not patrol the library or intervene as the bums had their"rights" although she apparently had none. She was close to retirement so could not just quit.

Public libraries in many cities have become for their legitimate users distasteful at best and dangerous at worst as alcoholic, druggie, filthy, stinking criminal homeless bums are allowed to spend their days lounging around on the couches sleeping it off inside. I would not dare enter the bathrooms of a public library in many communities today. When I was a child my mother took me at least weekly to the town's public library. I always felt safe there and never saw a vagrant (as they were called in those days) hanging around. How did it come to this?

When we lived in Hawaii I volunteered at a methadone clinic on the weekends trying to be civil minded to the community. Plenty of folks that were addicts came in and said that they were asked from "northern states" in the US..."hey, do you want to freeze to death this winter here or do you want a one way ticket to Hawaii and enjoy the harsh weather there?". Heard it more than once, so feel there is an element of truth to it. If they will "entice" them to warmer weather in winter, FL is a LOT cheaper to send them to than HI. This was in the late 90's.

TERRIBLE! The Villages MUST do something about this!

Remember summer of love?
 

I don’t care where you live - million dollar property to second hand trailer. You paid for the property or are paying for the property and taxes to the community. This is slippery slope that we have seen the outcome of cities don’t address it in the beginning. Think LA, Seattle, NYC, Chicago, Atlanta. By doing nothing and encouraging it you are saying you are ok with the same outcome. For the most (notice said most not all) part are people choosing to be homeless either because they like the not being responsible life style or are live the drug life style.
PS my family was homeless for a while due to job losses of both parents so yes I understand being homeless, but if you want out you can get out without setting up permanent tent cities and ruining the lives of hardworking people of all levels around you because of your nonconformist decisions.

Sadly many mental health facilities no longer exist. Usually when a person in need ends up in any ED.. it’s days before a facility can accept them… so many will be on the streets without help for most of their lifetime

The Villages is 2A NRA Fandom territory. Folks in this very forum will be the first to tell you about all the firearms they own, how often they practice on the range, how they learned in the military and know their way around this and that firearm, and no one should ever dare cross them because they are legally carrying and not afraid to protect themselves. Surely no one in our community would have reason to fear some random homeless guy.

Yeah. That's the ticket. Oh by the way...

when they leave, where do you figure they'll GO? Because - they have to go somewhere. There's no mass transit around here, they don't have homes to go to, no one's mentioned sending them to any shelters or even any shelters available to receive them. They have no transportation of their own (they'd be sleeping in it if they did), so they can't go any further than they can walk.

No idea how they ended up there in the first place, but it's kinda a good idea to have a plan, before you implement a response.

Judgmental cat judges.

I'm glad there isn't a big "visible" homeless population near my neighborhood. I know there are homeless people in the area - like coffeebean said - I see them on the corner of the 441 Walmart driveway. Haven't ever seen any come down my street, or hanging out in anyone's back yard. I'm thankful for that.

However, I've known a good amount of folks when they were homeless, as I used to hang out with them when I was a musician living in Boston and playing guitar in Harvard Square storefronts and the subway. Many of them were Vietnam vets suffering from PTSD and unable to succeed in living alone, with a spouse, with kids, or with their own parents (this was in the 1980's - most of their parents were still alive). Some of them had physical disabilities, combined with opiate addiction they ended up with as a direct result of requiring painkillers for the recovery of their injuries. A guy who had one leg cut off became a morphine addict. That kind of thing. Then there are the folks who have homes, but for whatever reason, don't go to them.

Like my friend Skip, who had what was -at the time - called paranoid schizophrenia. It has another name these days but you all know what I mean. He had a full 4-year scholarship to Harvard and spoke a few languages fluently. He was absolutely brilliant. But he also would often forget to take the meds. He'd go wandering off for a couple of weeks, sometimes even a couple of months. He'd disappear in early September and show up with plastic bags on his bare feet during the first snow fall, ranting and raving about how the Secret Service sent him on a special mission to protect the Harvard Square Constable from the infiltrators. Once he thought I was a princess and he was sent by the Secret Service to protect me. It was kinda sweet. When he was "sick" he reeked, because he had no understanding of his own hygiene needs. After a few days for him to decompress, we'd get him back to his parents' house so they could help him back onto his meds. He was considered homeless, because he had no home of his own. He would stay with his parents but he was 40 years old and the legal system wouldn't declare him incompetent, because he was 100% normal when he was taking his meds.

The other homeless folks would all look after each other. AND they looked after the entire neighborhood. They were part of the community and - though they often smelled bad because they didn't have regular access to showers, they all had generous spirits. Even the "sick" ones, and even the addicts.

In an environment like Harvard Square, where there's a LOT of culture, a LOT of diversity, and a LOT of very close-knit community members in a college setting, you'll see more tolerance. They still don't want them sleeping in their back yards, or blocking traffic, or walking up to people to beg. And that is an absolutely valid opinion and I share it.

But you STILL need to have a place to send them TO, when you send them away. WHERE are you sending them? Saying "I don't care as long as it's not near me" doesn't count. Because - they are where they are NOW - because someone said exactly that.

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Answer me this. When I was driving back north last spring in my pickup truck I pulled over into an empty parking lot and crawled into the back of the enclosed cab to grab a few hours of shut eye. I was in my own legally registered and insured truck and wasn’t bothering a soul. A cop pulled in an told me if I didn’t leave immediately that I would be arrested. How does that reconcile with people squatting for days on private land, pushing around stolen shopping carts full of who knows what, drinking and probably doing illegal drugs, panhandling and disturbing local residents, and being beyond the reach of the law? Something doesn’t add up?

Why should I or anyone else be responsible for sending them anywhere?

Granted there are a few homeless who deserve help but the vast majority are homeless bums due to their own life choices to drink, drug and commit crimes for which I am not responsible. They are.