Simply put Americans don't seem to care very much about other Americans.
What does it mean to "take care of" our homeless? House them? Who is willing to pay $3k/mo rent per homeless person?
In a third world nation, the "homeless" in San Francisco would be allowed to build a shantytown and would not be considered homeless. I'm not trying to minimize the real issues of poverty, but you can't avoid the fact that part of the problem is that regulation/civilization/whatever you want to call it has disallowed poor housing.
>Who is willing to pay $3k/mo rent per homeless person?
I consider myself pre-homeless at this point.
Now there's a vast oversimplification if there ever was one. Using SF, which is highly anomalous economically and socially, to extrapolate out and project it on "Americans" and their attitudes toward poverty is a lot like saying the City of London's particularities are the same as the rest of England.
Don't mean to be inflammatory, just how I see it having traveled a lot. It's wonderful to be rich in the US, you can get anything you want, but there's no sympathy for the poor or unfortunate or social underclasses (immigrant labor, etc) at all.
Is America too big of a country to be able to fix this?
The other west coast cities have massive homeless populations, too. LA has largely cleared the homeless encampments out of areas they are trying to spruce up (the revival of downtown LA and all that), but I've seen camps in LA rivaling those in SF. Portland and Seattle also get pretty large homeless populations during the spring and summer, although the homeless population drops precipitously during the rainy season up there.
The US actually spends far more than almost any other country in the world on programs for the poor. In many of the countries with less homelessness/drug-addiction, there is very little social welfare spending, and drug addicts are enrolled into compulsory treatment programs, something that has been deemed a human rights violation in the US.
Government in Thailand for example spends FAR less on social welfare programs than government in the US, but it has compulsory treatment.
You hit the nail on the head. What else do you expect from a society that won't even provide the option of healthcare to its citizens, that has massive industries whose sole purpose is to profit off the sickness and death of others, and that incarcerates over two million people at any given time, many for ordinary, everyday activities or mental health problems? It's a reflection of the people and many of the people are stupid, cruel, hateful, and puritanical to the point that they will do anything within their power to stop others from enjoying life. For example, the next time you hear someone talking about something they don't want their tax dollars going to, listen carefully to what they're saying. Rarely will it be the unjust wars we fight or other horrors like that, and often it will be others' well being and health. Or just talk to any Trump supporter (or almost any Republican at this point).
(I am not a moderator, of HN or of anywhere else, but it's the same principle)