Mentally ill people who wander the world without help have my greatest sympathy.

However, many hoboes are not mentally ill, they are alcoholics and drug addicts. They can be dangerous. We had one in our neighborhood named Steve. Steve was big, angry and powerful and had to be watched. One sad day we learned that Steve had knifed to death in a fight at a "homeless camp."

Our church has a garden that attracts hoboes. We had a group of them last year. They didn't seem obnoxious, so a tacit decision was made to let them stay.

Such a deal! There was shelter in the garden, there was water in the faucet, and the local pizza place gave them free pizza. It was the nearest thing to The Big Rock Candy Mountain that you could hope to find.

Did they live with that? No. They started angry, drunken fights in the wee hours of the night. Finally neighbors called police a number of times, and they moved on.

It's easy to blame society for not dealing with such people in the right way. But it's also very hard to find a right way when dealing with people who just do not make sense.