I sat and chatted to a homeless fella hanging out at Fisherman’s Wharf in SF for a while. He wasn’t from CA, from Missouri IIRC. He was gay, his family disowned him, he got into drugs. He got bitter, did some nasty stuff to people he hated, did some other misguided things and basically had hit rock bottom.

I asked him what he thought would be needed to bring him out of homelessness and keep him inside society. He said he didn’t want that, he said he enjoyed being homeless. He was sleeping in a squat house, he was able to score enough cash from tourists to support his drugs habit, the police left him alone because he didn’t look out of place, he was clean, groomed etc.

How does society help someone with that view?

Here in Glasgow, Scotland we have a relatable challenge. There’s 14 people who refuse accommodation. They are long term homeless, all of them have mental issues and most have addiction problems. There’s over 100 people most nights take up access to a homeless shelter in Glasgow but they accept the help available and on average only spend 3 nights before going into proper accommodation and no longer need the shelter’s help. So It’s not that there’s no systems in place but that hardcore of 14 people who want to live on the streets have no obvious way forward.

It’s played on my mind many times over the years, how do you help someone in that scenario?

I did a short stint with a charity who supports some folks who have been given emergency housing. I was in one of the blocks of flats in Paisley one day helping deliver some food shopping, they’re only just habitable these emergency apartments - extremely basic inside. I understand why, they get trashed often by residents and so the council can’t afford to make them nice. It’s quite a bleak outlook for these folks even if they did decide they want to live indoors again.

This is a long post to say the reality seems like there’s no quick fix or easy win. If you do nothing you make things worse. If you do something, it might not be wanted.