SO WHERE DO THEY GO NOW?

Even if they sleep drunk under bridges, people aren't trash to be cleaned
up. Nor are they to be ignored by those of us who sleep with stomachs full
in warm beds out of the freezing wind.

So while city and state authorities are justified in cleaning up the litter
of boxes, bottles and junk under Wilmington's bridges, that action demands
another: finding better shelter for these people and - for those who want
it and are capable of making use of it - offering help in finding ways back
to normal life.

Wilmington offers far too little of either shelter or help.

The estimates of the number of homeless people here vary widely, but these
days it appears to be a few thousand. Yet overnight shelter is provided for
only about 150. Private charities are able to provide no more at the moment.

No wonder people live in cars or curl up on cardboard anyplace they can get
out of the rain. No wonder they wander the streets. No wonder they panhandle.

We can't clear our consciences or our moral responsibilities by sniffing
that the majority of homeless people are addicted to drugs or alcohol or
are mentally ill - or suffer from some combination of those afflictions.

Yes, they act self-destructive. That's the nature of what's wrong with them.

The question is how a sensible and humane society deals with them. In the
past, we locked many in state institutions.

Several decades ago, with mostly good intentions, we decided to send most
of them back to their home communities, on the theory that they could be
happier and get better care.

Some have gotten it. Others live under bridges or lie stupefied in doorways
or wander the streets talking to themselves.

Even if we didn't care about these people, we'd be smart to think about
what they can do to the lives and businesses and taxes of the rest of us.

It's past time for Wilmington and New Hanover County, as well as the state,
to face this problem head on.

We need programs to treat mental illness and substance abuse. Programs to
help people learn to manage their lives and to find and keep jobs - and
programs that teach them the knowledge and skills that good jobs now require.

But whether people are getting their lives together or are cringing in the
shambles of them, they all need food and shelter.

Clean out the homeless camps? Fine.

But if we don't offer a way out for the people who live in those cardboard
slums, the misery and the problems will merely move elsewhere.