Smile though your heart is aching

Our town centre, like many others, has really gone down in the world. Shops stand empty, but should you want a nail bar, barber, vape shop, mobile phone shop, or one of those shops that sells a mixture of things you don’t really need like silver statues or vivid plastic flowers, you’re spoilt for choice.
This happy teddy was gracing the window of a card shop. 
A few shops away to its left, a young man was lying huddled in a blanket in an unused doorway of Poundland.
Another few doors away to its right, mattresses and blankets lie in heaps in the shelter of the overhanging frontage of the recently closed Marks and Spencer, ready to be occupied tonight.
There is a local homeless shelter, but it’s bursting at the seams.
However did we get into this state ?
And however can we get out of it ?