Where I live (San Francisco), many homeless people refuse to go to shelters, because the shelters have strict rules around belongings, enter/exit times, and alcohol and drug use, among other things. Personally I am of the opinion that we should just say "tough shit", and require homeless people to stay in shelters if there are beds available[0], but apparently that's not "humane" or whatever.
It's somehow more important to give someone the right to sleep on a street corner at noon (something I witnessed just today, in an area where there usually aren't many/any homeless people), than it is to help get them on their feet, plus allow the rest of us to feel safe and not have to deal with garbage, human shit, and needles all over.
[0] That's the other thing, though: I doubt we have enough shelter beds to cover all the homeless people here. Yet another thing that needs to be fixed. I hear NYC is able to house around 95% of their homeless, and we're a much smaller city.
Earnestly, these rules are in fact arbitrary and tough. When you’re a bum, genuinely all you have is your sense of your own personhood. Being assigned strict rules like a government mandated bedtime (aka a closing time for the shelter) is a huge pill to swallow because you’re giving up what little you have when you already have little. Additionally, shelters may not be safe for you! You may get robbed, raped, or otherwise violated by other people there, with no accountability or guarantee of safety.
On top of this, if you are addicted to drugs, you might be unable to safely detox. Cutting cold turkey in a shelter sounds like a nightmare and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bum would prefer remaining addicted on the street than vomiting/sweating/sick in a shelter full of strangers where you’re too vulnerable to fight back if anything goes wrong.
More realistically, I’ve known folks who refuse to go to shelters because the shelters demand them to give up their pets, aka their family and what’s getting them through the traumatizing experience of homelessness. Or they’re told to give up their possessions for being too bulky or much, even though there’s no guarantee they might not need all that gear back if they’re later kicked out or age out or housing falls through.
There's significant research showing that housing-first policies (which means getting people into housing with basically no strings attached) are effective not only at reducing homelessness but also at improving mental health and addiction outcomes.
Literally incarcerating people just for being too poor to afford decent housing is also ethically abhorrent, of course, but it's also not the most effective way to reduce the problems that are bothering you.
It's somehow more important to give someone the right to sleep on a street corner at noon (something I witnessed just today, in an area where there usually aren't many/any homeless people), than it is to help get them on their feet, plus allow the rest of us to feel safe and not have to deal with garbage, human shit, and needles all over.
[0] That's the other thing, though: I doubt we have enough shelter beds to cover all the homeless people here. Yet another thing that needs to be fixed. I hear NYC is able to house around 95% of their homeless, and we're a much smaller city.