Theriault has it all wrong. It's not just the rich people who live downtown who have a problem with the homeless. Ask any of the service industry workers with jobs there. We hate them too! Unlike you poncy liberals who write for the Mercury, insulated in your leafy bastions of inner SE, we can see these aggressive, scamming, public-defectors for what they are - a bunch of parasitic con artists too lazy to work like the rest of us. Less fortunate? Bwahaha. Hang out of lower Burnside for a bit, and you can see groups of beggars arriving for "work" in a taxi. Hand them a five spot and watch them scurry off to the crack supermarket on 4th. Let's get this straight. Rich people AND working class people hate beggars. Its only the starry-eyed, trust fund liberals who stand up for them.