Where are the homeless supposed to go?

[u/Garey_Coleman]

Cities have been cracking down on homeless people so they can’t have encampments or stay on sidewalks. At the same time usually the shelters are full. So those who are unable to get into a shelter, where are they supposed to go?

[u/Partnumber]

Away

[u/polerix → u/Partnumber]

In the old days, a hobo was more than a wanderer. He was a pilgrim of the rails, a philosopher in overalls, a singer with a bindle of songs. Boxcar Willie’s ballads painted every freight line as a story, every engineer a friend, every brakeman a partner in the great adventure of movement.

They shared a code scratched into fences and rail yards. A cross meant a kind widow with stew, a swirl warned of a sheriff, two lines marked safe camp. Recipes like mulligan stew and hobo hash passed from fire to fire. Food was scrounged and shared, not stolen. They lived on camaraderie, dignity, and song.

That world is gone. Not because the trains stopped or the hunger for freedom died, but because the street’s chemistry changed. Crack in the ’80s and fentanyl in the 2010s shattered the old code. Where once hobos carried recipes and symbols, today many carry addictions that break community.

Crack brought violence and suspicion into what had been a rough fraternity. Fentanyl is worse: a few grains can end a life in an alley before any song is sung. The language of stew pots and safe camps has no defense against powders that erase trust and time.

The hobo jungle was once a culture outside society. Today’s camps, torn apart by cheap poisons, are something else entirely. The romance is gone, replaced by a public-health crisis.

Best we can offer is "Hobo with a shotgun"