I can see what you are saying, you are probably right about the cause and effect. But I think you've unfairly shifted the blame to voters. Voters don't know how to handle a societal problem as big and as endemic as a growing homeless population, that's why we put our trust in politicians, councils and governors. Voters are just signalling a desire for a clean and safe neighborhood, and suppose even that they don't care how it's done, it's still the city and police force's responsibility to figure out a way to do it humanely and in a way that helps solve the issue, not sweep it into another neighborhood.

I want to point out that I am not anti-police, I'm just lamenting what seems to be a lack of empathy and perhaps even a lack of bravery for someone in the chain to change the approach. It's by no means an easy problem to solve, I don't envy those in charge.

> Voters are just signalling a desire for a clean and safe neighborhood, and suppose even that they don't care how it's done, it's still the city and police force's responsibility to figure out a way to do it humanely and in a way that helps solve the issue, not sweep it into another neighborhood.

I’m not willing to give voters the benefit of the doubt. We have a pretty well educated population that consistently goes to the polls and votes for the person that promises the lowest taxes. We can all say we want to support our fellow citizens all we want, but I have yet to see any action on that front.

> I’m not willing to give voters the benefit of the doubt. We have a pretty well educated population that consistently goes to the polls and votes for the person that promises the lowest taxes.

No, we don't. Not even after adding in the benefit of the fact that the people who run on that platform also benefit from structural advantages in all of the elected parts of the federal government.

> Voters don't know how to handle a societal problem as big and as endemic as a growing homeless population,

Ignorance of matters for which one is responsible is a curable condition, not an excuse.

> that's why we put our trust in politicians

Putting trust in the particular politicians voters have chosen to put their trust in is exactly why blaming voters is not an unfair shift of blame.

> Ignorance of matters for which one is responsible is a curable condition, not an excuse.

We can't be experts on every issue a council is currently responsible for. That's why we have a council in the first place, so they can be, or hire, the experts.

> Putting trust in the particular politicians voters have chosen to put their trust in is exactly why blaming voters is not an unfair shift of blame.

Yet every year we have just a handful of candidates, we pick the ones who advocate for our particular interests, and hope for the best on all the issues, because there is no way of knowing how the specifics are going to play out. We hope for good journalism to let us know of the particularly heinous issues, and then we do our best to vote correctly again next year.

> Yet every year we have just a handful of candidates

You must have very large hands, unless you are only talking about major party nominees (i.e., winners of the first round of voting from the two biggest parties.) There's a reasonable basis, arguably at least, for limiting consideration to major party candidates, but the nomination process is part of the selection process and the candidates that enter that process, not just the ones that win it, are part of the choice set. If one ignores the process until after most of the critical decisions are made, the remaining choices are quite limited, but that is itself a choice.