The issue with the homeless being allowed to do this is that the vast majority of them don't tend to respect anything. They throw their garbage wherever they feel like it and don't really follow these "laws" of where it's alright to set up a tent. Just check out east Hawthorne bridge with over 20 tents, nightly campfires, and beer drinking bike chopping parties. 

Was walking the ramp from EB Esplanade over the Steel Bridge around 7pm. A couple of homeless people had set up a large shelter (plywood, tarps, etc.) blocking the sidewalk and had garbage all around. They also had a poorly managed pit bull off-leash, that ran up at my wife and I as we got close to their shelter, wouldn't get away from us, actually moving us off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, continued following us far away from their shelter. The homeless were outside, watching, said nothing of their dogs behavior and seemed to be perfectly fine with it. 

You can be homeless. Don't be trashy, dis-respectful homeless