Why? Because many of them --- not all --- are very hard to live with. They drink and they stink, they drop lighted cigarettes hither and thither, they make messes,they leave trash wherever they go, they fight, they yell and cuss, they steal things from each other, they're paranoid and go around mumbling and making menacing remarks, they accost you, they scare you.
A lot of it is due to the whole gamut of mental illnesses. A good deal of it is attributable to drugs.
It is pathetic, and sure, it'd break your heart if it were somebody you loved. That doesn't mean you can invite them into your home.
Some of them can live peaceably. And for some, it's an on-and-off thing: sometimes serene and friendly, sometimes crazy as rats.
There are reasons their parents, brothers, exes, adult children, don't want them in the house.
There needs to be protective, controlled-living residential placements for such as these. Mental asylums.
Churches, here's your mission: step up.
That is so sad but true.
“They drink and they stink, they make messes, they leave trash wherever they go, they fight, they yell and cuss”
... and that is just the relatives who mutually cannot get along with their homeless family member they helped create.
Uh, the reason the homeless are crazy as rats is they do not have a home.
Go out and live in the bushes for a week and come back and report on what you learned.
Truth is, family dysfunction is FAMILY dysfunction - each member is ill, some admit, some deny.
The mental institutions need to be reopened & the ACLU needs to be told to STFU.
Many churches do step up.
But it is not the job of churches to feed and house the dangerously mentally disturbed.
Our church works closely with the Gospel Rescue Mission, and U-Turn for Christ. But both of these organizations have strict rules. In order to save the ones who will abide by the rules, they must turn away those who will not.
The homeless problem is not what most people think it is. There is almost no place in the US where a person who is willing to not drink or drug in a facility and is willing to not smoke in that facility ever has to sleep outdoors. OTOH, there are many who insist on using drugs, drinking and smoking. These people actually choose to live on the street, and keep their drugs.
And, in many cases their mental illnesses are greatly exacerbated by their self-medication with street drugs.
I certainly have great sympathy for the homeless, and our church does step up and help. BUT, when a man spurns the advice that will get him well, and instead chooses to wallow in the same destructive behavior that caused his problems he really does not want the help we can offer. And, we have no obligation to contribute our limited resources to his self destruction.