[throw_a_grenade]

I don't know SF homeless, but if you'd come ove here, you'd be surprised. Some of the refugees I met were “normal people” in their previous years, smart, well educated, well paid, resourceful. Some of them were much, much richer than me. That's simply because the poor in their country lack the means to even start the journey. They are those who have no choice but to rot to death (sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively). But not those who chose to leave the circumstances.

I'm not sure about the exact context of the language you quoted(not a native speaker), but ISTM you mean “well it's their choice that they are homeless” as somehow demeaning. Is it used in your country as a rhetorical device to imply that a person could have just chosen not to be poor (or persecuted), and then as an excuse not to help someone in need? That's very wrong and not matching reality I saw. Usually the choice was to either flee or something even worse happens to him/her (or the family).