How Aggressive Should we be in Tackling Homelessness Downtown?

Today's post is more of an open discussion. One of our readers (hat-tip to Daniel) submitted an article about urban design tools being used to drive away the homeless in cities around the world such as London, Tokyo, and Montreal. These range from spikes in the ground to prevent the homeless from sleeping in certain locations to uncomfortable seats that discourage loitering beyond a quick rest.

After reading the article (link below), please let us know what you think. Are these cruel or do we need to move in this direction to reduce homelessness Downtown?

Source: The Atlantic

Open Forum: Homelessness in San Jose

Okay, today we're going to do things a little bit differently. There is no real post, just an open topic for discussion on one of the worst problems San Jose faces (especially Downtown) as well as many other Silicon Valley cities... homelessness. There are at least 7,000 homeless people living in the San Jose metro right now. What should we do about it?

Should we follow the San Francisco route and put millions and millions of dollars into programs supporting the homeless, even going so far as to make it fully legal for people to sleep in public places like parks (proposed law), or will that just attract more homeless people? Should we go the New York route and do everything possible to get homeless out of the city, or is that immoral? They even went so far as to ban food donations to homeless shelters, which was also done in several Texas cities. Or perhaps is there some middle ground, such as taking good care of all homeless that were born in the San Jose area, but asking everyone else to leave.

There is no right or wrong answer, this is an open topic and I just want to hear your thoughts.