Brunswick-upon-Raritan wrote:California and Colorado both have terrible homeless problems. It’s terrible because the urban density in these states is so low, homeless people can literally colonize whole swathes of land in L.A. and Denver. That’s what happens when you build a society around automobiles plus rampant drug use. Tent cities become preferable to shelters. Homelessness is terrible everywhere, of course (except in Cuba maybe where it doesn’t exist), but in these generally fair-weather Western states the conditions are especially optimal for year-round homeless camp formation. I think in colder New York, Philadelphia, and New England, homeless people are much more reliant on the welfare system, and are consequently less of a problem than places where they try to fend for themselves.
Ignoring the humanitarian aspect, why is unused land being host to tent cities a problem?