To understand why people appear to not care you have to imagine seeing that grinding human despair twice a day, every day, on your way to and home from work. Th

To understand why people appear to not care you have to imagine seeing that grinding human despair twice a day, every day, on your way to and home from work. The only way to deal with it is to ignore it, because it's so horrible. Then you have to imagine occasionally (or regularly) being accosted or physically assaulted by some fraction of the homeless population, and you can see how people become hardened to it. The visible homeless problem, as it's described here, is almost entirely caused by mental illness and drug addiction; usually both. People ignore it because they literally can not do anything about it as an individual. The worst cases you see on the street have intractable problems no amount of money can solve. The only way to end the homelessness epidemic in coastal cities is to rebuild the mental health care system, and allow limited involuntary committal. My Brother lived in Seattle and had severe psychosis for several years. Cutting holes in the walls to find the hidden cameras, refusing to eat because the food was poisoned, etc. The rest of the family lives out of state and no amount of begging the police and social workers would get him into a stable environment. I was told that there were only 80 beds available for in-patient mental health services in all of King County. Multiple episodes of self-harm and threatened suicide had no effect whatsoever on the treatment options available. He would go into a meeting with a case worker raving about gang stalking and CIA assassins, with words carved in his arms, and they would just tell him to come back in a week for a check in. A person in this state does not believe that there is anything wrong with them, and will not seek or accept help. The only way we were able to get him treatment was to physically fly out there and force him to leave for Illinois where some family members live. Now, imagine a person in that condition who has no one that is willing or able to intervene, and you can see how complicated this problem is.