> I've never had a problem with someone who seems to be unhoused (I wouldn't know).

It's not unusual to never have problems with the homeless (especially if you rarely come into contact with them), but your personal experience here is worthless. Especially irrelevant is your experience of people in SUVs with phones. Not knowing if the people around you are homeless is not a sign of open-mindedness, it's a sign of a possible lack of sensitivity.

People who are homeless are going through issues, and are largely being shunned and ignored by the public. They often became homeless because they were impossible to live with. The ones most likely to be around you, in your space, and that you're likely to clock as homeless are the most aggressive, because homeless people with all their marbles generally make an effort not to seem homeless and don't ask strangers for anything. They die quietly, off alone in a corner, unless someone saves them first.

And rationally, which I discovered myself as a homeless teenager 30-some years ago: you'll never meet, or help, the homeless people who aren't pestering you and bothering you and invading your space.

So when visible homeless people are being talked about, there's no reason to completely avoid drawing any conclusions or making any generalizations about them. I feel it's a clumsy attempt to avoid judging people based on their wealth, but there are many other homeless people in the same position as visibly homeless people, but who are not visible. Pretending that the visually homeless are completely indistinguishable from other groups of people is just a form of active neglect. Pretending not to see them does not make them disappear.

> Are you assuming people share your prejudice? Who is 'riff-raff'?

There are homeless people literally smoking fentanyl on Seattle buses (and the light rail). Does that qualify?

And I'm not even talking about mere antisocial behavior like blasting shitty music from Bluetooth speakers or screaming obscenities at people.