In Seattle, it became the norm. Honestly, my commute from an island required exiting a ferry terminal. On the way from the terminal to the office, I eventually went dead on the inside after stepping over sleeping homeless and wretched smells.
I used to work in San Francisco and after buying a house on Bainbridge Island, I now work in an office around the Westlake Center.
It really isn't that bad mate. After living around the world (central Europe, SE Asia), Los Angeles, the mid west, I can say that people who complain about smells and the homeless are incredibly sheltered. I find they tell on themselves when they complain about seeing homeless people when the crime rate is down across the board from the last 20 years.
If you are so offended by seeing someone in distress, who is probably more dead on the inside trying to survive in a world whose upward mobility is strongly diminishing, then perhaps you shouldn't be going into that community to begin with.
My solution, at that time, was to stop walking beyond the terminal exit then hailing an Uber to pick me up. That tunnel under the highway was bad.
It's perfectly fair to complain whilst having empathy for people. The lack of solutions or even enforcement is a problem, and I voted with my feet to live away from it.
