answer:In some instances it is a choice, but that choice is based on treatable mental conditions. For example, some Vietnam Veterans came home with PTSD so severe it gave them extreme agoraphobia and they could not bear to live indoors. I saw a documentary in which they interviewed a couple of guys who lived outdoors in a Canadian forest because anything with walls scared the hell out of them. They were college students drafted into a war they didn’t agree with, forced to experience horrors beyond all imagining, and sent home afterward with no support, their lives permanently destroyed before they were old enough to legally buy a ****. People like to think there are resources because it makes them feel better. If they keep telling themselves that the guy panhandling for quarters chose to be homeless, chose to be an alcoholic, and that his mental illness is a result of drug use and not genetics or illness, they feel justified in not providing the help they would hope for themselves, were they trapped in such a hopeless situation. Even when some people contribute money for charitable causes, they don’t give to those who need the help – they give to a large, well funded organization with massive overhead costs, that may distribute some of that contribution to smaller organizations with massive overhead costs, and hopefully enough of that contribution will trickle down so that the poor panhandler’s kids can get a used jacket in time for the winter snowstorms. Maybe.