This is a dilemma that I face every day when I walk outside my building. I don't think the social worker could do anything, except perhaps just walking by asking him to move along. Maybe offer some 2 minutes of therapy by engaging the guy and talking about the outdoor gym in a nearby park where he could flex and work out. If the "ambassadors" engaged the people every day there could be a breakthrough and the person could finally except help or get so annoyed that they find somewhere else to hang out. If the city really wants to do something about this issue, they need to have people out there every day. My first impulse is to find a solution or help but like you say ''''what am I supposed to do about it".
@david_shane The point about the "gap" is an excellent way to put it. I don't have any good answers on the specifics of how to deal with this either, though I'm fairly confident that the answer isn't top down, it starts with all of us holding people each other to standards and not making exceptions for the worst of us out of sympathy.
If people protest and write in every time a city clears a homeless encampment or kicks a group of drug users out of a park then how are our leaders supposed to respond to such cases? If the people that speak up care more about giving maximal freebies to those perceived as needy than they do about providing services that benefit the actual taxpayers than why should we expect good roads or maintained parks? If people vote in and support prosecutors that enact a catch and release policy why be surprised when you have to have deodorant unlocked at the store?
In the case of a guy flexing and being weird in a coffee shop window, we need a society that encourages citizens to confront and berate that individual with less fear of legal repercussions if things go sideways. Enforcing social/cultural norms is on all of us and keeping the legal system out of it to the greatest degree practical helps avoid sliding into authoritarianism.
Maybe I shared that piece by Chris Arnade a while back where he commented that, in South Korea, even the drunks behave themselves. He gave an example of some drunk men walking 500 feet to use a public restroom, and leaving it immaculate when they were finished, even though drunk! Why? Because South Korea is a land of extremely strong social pressures and stigmas. And, to put it one way, if your "brain isn't working right" (could be a temporary problem if you're drunk, could be something more permanent), those pressures and stigmas, which have been there since birth, help guide you into mostly reasonable behavior.
What happens in the United States? Well we're the land of freedom, baby. Social pressures and stigmas are extremely weak here, and so people who need those pressures to push them into a reasonable life, don't have them, and so they just end up living in disorder on the street. Until eventually they do something really bad and then we put them in jail for a while. It's not a great way to handle them.
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If people protest and write in every time a city clears a homeless encampment or kicks a group of drug users out of a park then how are our leaders supposed to respond to such cases? If the people that speak up care more about giving maximal freebies to those perceived as needy than they do about providing services that benefit the actual taxpayers than why should we expect good roads or maintained parks? If people vote in and support prosecutors that enact a catch and release policy why be surprised when you have to have deodorant unlocked at the store?
In the case of a guy flexing and being weird in a coffee shop window, we need a society that encourages citizens to confront and berate that individual with less fear of legal repercussions if things go sideways. Enforcing social/cultural norms is on all of us and keeping the legal system out of it to the greatest degree practical helps avoid sliding into authoritarianism.
What happens in the United States? Well we're the land of freedom, baby. Social pressures and stigmas are extremely weak here, and so people who need those pressures to push them into a reasonable life, don't have them, and so they just end up living in disorder on the street. Until eventually they do something really bad and then we put them in jail for a while. It's not a great way to handle them.