The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) shared this in response to this idea:
Stories about “dangerous homeless people” do serious harm. A big barrier we always face in developing more housing for homeless people is the “not in my back yard” response. If stories of “dangerous homeless people” have seeped into people’s consciousness, without any critical thinking to get in the way, it will make that response harder to stop.
Our society is increasingly divided by the politics of making people afraid. Politicians seek electoral advantage by spreading stories that stoke fear of people associated with their opponents. Viral news stories about the scary “other” isolate and segregate us from one another. We need to do what’s right in the face of fear, and be skeptical of anything that portrays entire categories of people as dangerous.