Of course some prefer to do it because they are emotionally ill, because they have been locked up before and are determined not to be locked up again. Others are afraid of the violence and the problems they might find there. But some seem to want something that isn't available in shelters, and they won't compromise, whether for a cot, or oatmeal, or a shower with a special soap that kills insects. “A room,” a woman with a baby sleeping on her sister’s floor once told me, “painted blue.” This was the crux of the matter; not size or location, but pride of ownership. Painted blue. This is a difficult problem, and some wise and compassionate people are working hard to solve it. But overall I think we can get around the problem, just like we get around it when it's lying on the sidewalk or sitting at the bus station: the problem, in fact. It is customary to take people's pain and diminish our participation in it by turning it into a problem, not a collection of human beings. Let's transform an adjective into a noun: the poor, not the poor; the homeless man, not Ann or the man who lives in the box or the woman who sleeps in the subway