Diving into the Las Vegas homeless population

In her Sept. 11 commentary “Stop helping: Some homeless need tough love,” Susan Estrich accurately assessed the situation, but stopped short of correctly identifying these problematic transient residents for who they really are. They are not recreational or holiday campers. They are, in fact, “vagrants” as legally defined.

The homeless and the professionally diagnosed mentally ill transients deserve social service assistance and intervention for all the right reasons. But like squatters, vagrants are living a chosen lifestyle outside the law, as described by Ms. Estrich, and not “homeless” looking for a “hand up” to be productive members of society.

We need to stop calling vagrants “homeless” as part of the profile justifying nonprofit programs. They need to be identified, separately defined as such and held accountable for illegal and anti-social behavior.

If you’re looking for truth in numbers, it’s a fair question to ask: How many of these homeless are in fact vagrants?