> The difficult issue is some people don't want to go to a homeless shelter because they want to maintain a level of freedom while others fear they will be robbed/raped at the shelter.
A bit of a strawman, social service doesn't have to mean homeless shelter, so no, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Problem is in many places at least where I live, there just isn't enough money to serve all the people that need the various levels of help.
Homeless people go to homeless shelters from that point they could go into secondary housing or other programs.
In my city they wanted to end homelessness 25 years ago. They had enough money to do so and went ahead. They found a 1/3 refused to come in even on the coldest days for various reasons. The fight became do you let them stay and sleep on the street or do you force them into shelters/jails.
What is more humane? The let's leave them on the street but send people to feed them approach won over the forcible removals.
So homelessness remained.
When people say they want to end homelessness I don't think they realize they need to jail some of them.
A bit of a strawman, social service doesn't have to mean homeless shelter, so no, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Problem is in many places at least where I live, there just isn't enough money to serve all the people that need the various levels of help.