> ... allegedly mentally ill ... ... disregarding the norms of society ... seemingly mentally ill I think you are giving yourself too much leeway with your wea

> ... allegedly mentally ill ... ... disregarding the norms of society ... seemingly mentally ill I think you are giving yourself too much leeway with your weasel words here. I lived in San Francisco and saw first hand the homeless problem. These are not a group of free-spirits, bucking the norms of society and living an honest drifter lifestyle. Maybe you would like to call to mind the counter-culture described by beat poets like Jack Kerouac. Or maybe you want to warn against the kind of authoritarian cruelty fictionalized in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. However, it is my experience that the people living on the streets in the Tenderloin aren't down on their luck Woody Guthrie types, pining for a pre-technology, more social friendly USA that valued simple folk. I think we need to avoid painting ourselves into corners with false dichotomies. It isn't like the only options are to round them up and lock them away in a mental hospital or to leave them completely free on the streets. And like it or not, the middle ground may require some intervention that is forceful.