I know a few homeless men that hang around the neighborhood where our business is located, have known them for years and we are on a first name basis. We save our pop cans for them. The ones I know are hard working people that spend most of their days picking up scrap metal. They are not thieves, but they are alcoholics. You don't see them much the first week of the month because they are flush with money from their monthly check they get from the government - they spend it pretty quickly on alcohol and cigarettes. The last two weeks of the month, they are busy pushing shopping carts full of any metal they can find to take to the scrap yard.
I soon discovered that they are living the life they choose to live. Any of them could stay at the local shelter where they would get a bed and food, clean clothes, etc. - and they usually go there when the weather gets intolerably cold or bad. But the thing they don't like there is that they aren't allowed to drink or do drugs & they don't want to have to follow those rules. One of them actually has family that comes and picks him up at Thanksgiving and Christmas, takes him home to feast with them and then he is back on the street - usually with a new coat and shoes.
I feel sorry for them and pray for them, but I don't know what else I can do to help them.