[saiya-jin]

I presume you guys are in the US. In Europe, at least the parts where I live(d), most homeless indeed have drugs problems. There are social places where they can sleep, get clean, they help them with first steps of integration back, but its often tied to being clean from drugs. Many choose not to accept this.

Then for those who reject there is free drug dispensary & usage place, we talk about proper opiates like heroin, not some weak substitutes.

In our situation and location, the money isn't a solution for a beggar. Meal can be, ideally hot in the cold. Also, since we talk about Switzerland, people come from rest of Europe seasonally to beg and then go home to live off social services. Again, no reason to give money.

[memetherapy]

Nope I'm from the UK but we have a system that is closer to the American then the Swiss. There are services out there but they're incredibly poorly funded.

[sgt]

No doubt it's underfunded, but it's one of those things that will always be seen as underfunded due to the prevalent victim-mentality these days.