Homeless explosion on West Coast pushing cities to the brink
Perhaps a little inland from the coast, but I was in Palm Springs 10 years ago, and then again this year and was struck by what seemed like a general deterioration in the town, as well as the number of homeless people - I don&#x27;t remember seeing a single homeless person on my first trip. Very sad to see. These intertwined economic&#x2F;social problems seem to be the most difficult to solve, or is it just lack of willingness to do something about it by elites or society as a whole?<p>An idea that has crossed my mind before is: how expensive would it be to provide the homeless the very bare minimum of survival i.e. food, shelter, most basic healthcare, even free alcohol? Why don&#x27;t we just accept that some people are going to fall through the cracks and save ourselves the delusion that we are going to be able to get them off drugs&#x2F;reintroduce them to employment etc., and take care of their needs in the simplest and cheapest way possible?<p>The current economy is pretty good at casting aside those it deems economically worthless. Is it really so tricky to just accept this and pay to look after them?