I'll happily give my views as a tourist. I've just come back from a CA road-trip and the homelessness I saw was absolutely devastating. For some background, I'

I'll happily give my views as a tourist. I've just come back from a CA road-trip and the homelessness I saw was absolutely devastating. For some background, I'm from London. We have homeless here, but it's different. I've very very rarely ever seen someone who is homeless here that also has any immediately obvious mental health issues (of course, just my experience). I try to interact with them as much as I can, I live in central and I can't fathom how dehumanising of an experience it must be being ignored by thousands of people a day. So a quick chat and an offer to buy food and that's about it. All in all they are usually pleasant people and quite polite. Now London is also different in the states in that - at least in my peer group (16-25) - almost no-one carries cash. At all. Chip & Pin and contactless all the way. But the states was something else. The first city I was in was San Fransisco. I had so many expectations of this city, but the sheer scale of homelessness and the sheer amount of people who didn't care because it wasn't their problem was absolutely mind bending. Something that is seared into my memories is that of a young man who must've been around my age who in the most polite way and with the most destroyed look on his face asked if I could "possibly spare any change." Just the tone he said it with and the look on his face genuinely gave me tears in my eyes as I walked with my girlfriend. I could only say I was sorry that I didn't carry cash on me, but he didn't even wait for a response as I assume he almost always gets ignored. We saw homeless tents all along the street our hotel was on (Eddy Street) and they were literally shooting up heroin, in view of everyone, a couple of steps away from the entrance. Almost every other city we went to was the same. LA though was next level. I can't remember the exact areas but it was near union station/the jewellery district - but my goodness we literally walked down a different street and the difference was night and day. Needles on the floor, a geezer walking past throwing a bloody tube on the street, so many boarded up shops with signs that looked maybe a few years old. Absolutely insane! It was even more surreal seeing "luxury flats" overlooking those streets, it felt like some kind of jest. The last time I'd seen poverty (not just homelessness, poverty) like that was when I was growing up in Tangiers. Honestly I feel so much for the homeless over there because I have no idea how you're supposed to get out of it. At least here we have some safety nets with social housing and benefits (although there are definite cracks where people slip through). I really hope things get better somehow - it was painful seeing how little passers by seemed to care (I assume they are desensitised and have struggles of their own). We spoke to so many Uber drivers about it and they would just blame the homeless - "It's all their own fault. They can get help if they want to."