Can't we do better than this?

On a walk with a parent in 1940, a curious small child looked at this scene and asked: "What's that?"

"Oh, that's some Boy Scouts with a thing they call a pup tent."

On a walk with a parent in 1990, a curious child looked at this scene and asked: "What's that?"

"That's a back packing tent. When you get bigger, we'll do that one day."

On a walk with a parent in 2020, a curious child looked at this scene and asked: "What's that?"

"Oh, that's a tent. That's where some people who don't have houses sleep. Unless they aren't lucky enough to have a tent. Then they sleep in the doorways."

I'm out most mornings at dawn, running in the Mission District streets. It's not like what I hear the Tenderloin looks like -- so many tents that the sidewalks are impassable to walkers. But many blocks, including the one I live on, host at least one tent. The one pictured is half a block from the police department; don't know if that makes for a danger to its occupants or provides a kind of security. All along Valencia Street, people huddle under blankets in doorways.

Can't we do better than this?