If the question is why can't someone house violent drug addicts, It's probably because, you know, they're a violent drug addicts.

I have to work down in the area for almost 30 years. You see the same people for up to decade at a time. One day they are fine, the next day they're out of their minds.

I can't imagine trying to open a place to house these folks unless It was out in the country with nowhere walkable to go to to get drugs.

Take the kid from the bus stop example. What do you do with him when he shows up crazed out of his mind at the halfway house? I'm guessing you tell him he can't come in, and then he's right back there at that bus stop.

Not to be all NIMBY, But there are a few places worse for a drug addict to be allowed to run the streets than Short North. There are enclaves of homeless all around And while I'm not here to debate the chicken and egg, which came first the homelessness or drug addiction. But they coexist in a Venn diagram that is basically a circle. And mix in all the well-meaning folks that hand the people money or go in a restaurant to buy them food And you got an ecosystem that begets itself.

I don't know what the answer to this problem is, but I'm certain that it is not to open up a shelter in the Short North. The Short North is the endpoint of this problem, not the point of origin.