It's not just a US thing, though. I believe that some form of this is pretty common in general simply because that's how people cope with the very fact that ho

It's not just a US thing, though. I believe that some form of this is pretty common in general simply because that's how people cope with the very fact that homelessness exists in the first place. Like, it's either a massive injustice that pretty much demands that you, personally do something significant about it... or it's "just the way it is", and you can look away. But this latter outlook requires some amount of dehumanization, so people rationalize that the best they can.