In my city, and a number of others I've been to recently, there are giant permanent homeless encampments -- tent cities under bridges, on sidewalks, etc. People are milling around, blasted out of their minds on whatever drug. Some are probably pretty normal and relatively intact, but the ones who catch the eye are so far gone it breaks your heart.

Have no idea what can be done about this once it gets so far gone. It breaks your heart to see, I don't even care how or why they got there, it shows that society is not right if people are washing out of it in this way. The fact that there's record low unemployment, as remarked elsewhere, just makes it more poignant and baffling.

Depends on the country, I talk for Spain, here we have something called "Paro", it's paid from a state fund that's of course, paid with taxes, I've worked for six years straight so I had up to 2 years of this help, also I had my savings.

It's not sustainable in the way its done today, but hey, it's better than nothing and it actually help to have government sponsored courses and a leave that you pay beforehand while you work, I don't know how it works in other European countries, but at least here you can take a time and not lose your life working as they do in America.