What "real solutions" come with "tough love", aka denial of assistance.

It's not about emotions. It's logical and for the good of the community to not have desperate people doing desperate actions just to survive. Give them a home and welfare and they won't be on the streets up to no good - or put them in corporate jail costing taxpayers even more. Those are actual solutions, though we can certainly do better with counseling, services, loans, cooperatives, etc. Many folks can rebound if given a chance, and some will never.

Just two weeks ago we held our annual event in front of city hall - and there is much more going on than that on many fronts. I'm connected with many groups, including some that deal with the down and out. Are you?

You can cherry pick what you want from your "hundreds of years" but the fact is that societies do better when everyone is looked after. You don't seem to know much about drug addicts so I recommend you check out Dr. Gabor Maté's work. He's the best I've come across.

It's true you can't fix addicts without them willing. They need to work on themselves. You won't get their cooperation without compassion. Then both internal and external can work together.

Further, I was duped by Big Pharma, society, and my family (with many doctors) and took "anti"-depressants for 4.5 years and my life was destroyed before quitting cold turkey - and for twice as long I scraped, crawled, climbed, and walked the hard path out of that.

What is cowardly about that?

Name-calling makes you look weak.