I used to believe this based purely on having heard it all my life. But a friend of mine recently made an interesting point: he asked me what race homeless people are. My answer (at least here in LA) was that they're almost unanimously black or white. Never Asian. Never indian. Rarely Mexican.

I countered that it could be due to Asian and Mexican cultures being more culturally inclined to take care of their own, but I haven't fully convinced myself that that's the case.

My friend who made this point happens to be black, and his explanation was that having grown up in a black neighborhood, he noticed that black and white people have a sense of entitlement that other races don't often have, both for reasons that don't need explaining, and that that type of attitude begets unfortunate circumstances. I don't know whether I entirely agree with this point either, but it certainly makes you think.