re: What or when is the breaking point for the homeless situation across major cities?

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You're okay with them sleeping in tents in the city, shitting on the sidewalk and ruining everything with no repercussions? Where is your empathy for the people who have to live and work there?

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This isn't a black-and-white issue. It's easier and more convenient to say, “This person cannot pitch a tent where other people would not expect to see a tent, or would prefer not to see a tent,” than it is to grapple with what happens to that person next.

I don't think people should be permitted to threaten others, destroy property, block access, or create serious public-health hazards simply because they are homeless. Those are behaviors the government can regulate. But I also have a hard time saying that no one should have the freedom to pitch a tent on a public sidewalk or in a public park simply because other people would rather not see it. And I am deeply uncomfortable giving the government enough power to decide that certain citizens are so undesirable, burdensome, addicted, mentally ill, or socially disruptive that they can be deprived of their liberty and detained in an institution for an extended period of time, or indefinitely.

There is a very large space between “no repercussions whatsoever” and “the government can involuntarily confine you.”

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What should happen to that person next?

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This is not about what I want for anyone. This discussion is about what the government should have the power to force citizens to do. There's no obvious or easy answer.

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It's barbarism to allow human beings to live this way.

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Humans have agency. The government should have to meet a very high bar to establish that a person's diminished capacity warrants confinement.

Touché