If you say you’ve never noticed homeless people living among us, you’re in good company.

The chronic homeless tend to be very adept at blending in. They work hard at not drawing attention to themselves.

A trained eye is conditioned to see the signs: individuals wearing several layers of clothing, even during warm weather; a stuffed backpack or duffle bag, or both; loitering at 24-hour fast-food restaurants, hanging out where people congregate and maybe snag a free coffee or doughnut.

The condition of being homeless is far more prevalent than the example of the tent city featured in Sunday’s Butler Eagle. It’s much more common to find a young person “couch surfing” — crashing on the sofas of friends and relatives without a bed or address to call their own than it is to hear of people sleeping under bridges or park benches. What they have in common is lack of resources or means to obtain them.

Sunday’s report quotes a local business owner who has frequent contact with clientele he knows are homeless. He very strongly emphasizes that the homeless are not very different from the general population — you’ll find good individuals and jerks in both.

If there is a common trait among the homeless, it’s a deep wariness against any threat to their independence. They tend to distrust others, even when the others have purely good intentions. The homeless instinctively resist formal assistance because of the implied bureaucratic strings attanched — they prefer not to be beholden or indebted to anyone. They prefer it so much, in fact, that they risk living under their own scary brand of frontier justice. Police don’t patrol tent city neighborhoods.

Taken from a clearer perspective, the challenge is not so much how to tailor special treatment for the homeless as much as it is how to find ways to treat them fairly, as a society would treat any other population segment.

One imaginative approach is being tried in cities elsewhere that might be considered here. The concept is simple: the municipality seizes condemned housing and turns it over to a nonprofit charitable housing rehab organization. The organization trains qualified homeless individuals to repair the homes, in exchange for housing, rehab and medical treatment and eventually a paycheck. As they develop their skills, they have the option of contracting, joining a labor union, or staying on with the organization and training still more homeless people how to fix houses.

Repeat this formula until the community runs out of homeless, or condemned housing, or both.

Putting homeless people to work while fixing up substandard housing for them and others to live in. That has all the makings of a win-win.