You're spot on about the homeless. I've tried to help some, but their addictions seem always to win out. Out of rehab, then back to the woods/railroad.

There was an initiative a few years ago to rebuild the mental health institutions/facilities throughout the country. Beginning in the 1970s, I think, they closed something like 75% of them. Something to do w/ Medicaid - I forget the details. Dumped 'em on the streets.

Sadly, many have multiple addictions (drugs + ethanol +tobacco), and have sustained tragic levels of neurological and vascular damage, many times on top of serious mental illness. Medical train wrecks, unemployable with ruptured families left long ago in their pasts.

I fear what's coming at us too, if we don't have sound economic policies, and perhaps a cultural epiphany, even a revival of sorts.

But, remember in your intown toney neighborhoods, it's the white collar crowd, with the BMWs, that sustains much of the drug industry there.