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That's the key experience you're missing. If you've never lived in a high-homeless/drug abuse area, you don't really understand how thoroughly draining it is on every aspect of civic life.
Some American cities have the state capacity necessary to do the former option, but the rest are stuck with the latter. And the latter only works if you can get evidence for low-level crimes when they happen.
Except you don't fix homelessness by charging all the homeless people with felonies for engaging in their hobbies (weed smoking) - you do it by working out why the housing economy is so dogshit that so many people can't get one.
Like, I live in Detroit, and we don't have enough crime to justify it.