In Canada it's the association with drugs, begging, and an inability for people to grasp the nature of addiction.

Vancouver (2 hours north of Seattle) is the "California of Canada" our warmest friendliest climate, so we have one of the largest homeless and drug addiction populations in North America.

Tent cities and homeless camps are often riddled with syringes, and the neighborhoods they enter become riddled with crime and violent assaults, muggings or stabbings.

Prohibition in general naturally creates a vagrant underworld filled with low level drug dealers who are users themselves, and finally most of these people have mental health issues, and they are preyed upon by the drug dealers so they can have new customers.

If you come from middle class suburbia, there is often the association that they are the bad kids from high school who made bad choices, and so chose that path.

If you come from a working class neighborhood, there is a Republican pull yourself up by your boot straps mentality, and get a job, and if you can't your weak.

So in both cases, there is a moral judgement that stereotypes who homeless people are, from what they typically see, and a failure to comprehend the nature of drug addiction and mental health related issues.