That's extreme because it's been out of sight of the general public. So YES I think this could happen anywhere in this environment and I see it happening even in VERY public squares. The homeless are desperate and not all of them are brain dead. So they're able to outsmart and move around quickly enough to beat the 9-5 government folks in charge. Pretty much only police, emergency room hospital workers and the fire department are on 24/7 schedule. That's not particularly relevant for these riverside dwelling that have been there for years. Probably people want to be tolerant, hope their neighbors or police pick up the burden.
I'm noticing more degenerate looking, desperate bums haunting my suburban community pretty much all over town. I've known for many years that these bums use the buses. It's so obvious because they're always found most densely around the major bus lines out of Los Angeles. Street camping in tents isn't a thing here YET. So far they're just here in really beat up motor homes parked in the Walmart parking lot or anywhere else the cops don't run them out of town quickly. It's very disturbing but like a city dweller you do become desensitized.
It's all of out problems for sure but that doesn't mean there's much any individual can do. The problems are very deeply entrenched now in our civilization. Took a few generations to degrade to this level. We are not headed in a direction toward correcting these trends so I expect it will get much worse fairly quickly til it hits a breaking point. We'll see. Keep your powder dry.