Most people are familiar with the caste system as practiced by Hindus in India. Despite decades of attempts by the Indian government to do away with the more egregious elements of this ancient social order, many people persist in identifying with and operating under the old rules. There are four castes--but five groups of people within the system. The casteless (or outcastes, if you prefer) are commonly called "untouchables." That means about what it sounds like.

We don't have the caste system here in the United States, but there are untouchables nonetheless. These folks are called bums, hobos, winos, homeless, migrants, vagrants--not unlike the Eskimos and snow, we've got an awful lot of words for poor people with no fixed address.

Early yesterday morning, a 21-year-old Murphy, N.C. policeman Jeffrey Postell arrested Eric Rudolph, the guy suspected of bombing abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympics. Rudolph disappeared almost five years ago after the FBI named him as a suspect in the bombings. The profilers believed that Rudolph was living near his hometown of Murphy--not in town, per se, but somewhere in the vast Nantahala National Forest which spans much of the western edge of North Carolina.

So, starting in 1998, the FBI and police combed the forest and asked hunters and trappers to be on the lookout for Rudolph. At one point, the search turned up some empty food containers, but no Rudolph. The FBI slowly cut back its efforts and pretty much gave up the hunt after 9/11. There was open speculation that Rudolph had died.

But he hadn't. He simply did the next best thing: Become a bum.

I don't know how long Rudolph has been scrounging for food in Murphy. Chances are it wasn't five years; Murphy is a small town and his appearance hasn't changed enough to fool many. Still, I bet he came into town regularly and scored some grub from grocery store and restaurant dumpsters (and, possibly, friends) before returning to his "homes" outside town. No one recognized him before yesterday; in any case, no one turned him in. Even Postell, the arresting officer, didn't know he'd nabbed the former Public Enemy No. 1 when he picked up Rudolph. One of the other policemen at the station made the identification.

Rudolph isn't the only fugitive to disappear into plain sight. Brian David Mitchell, the loony who, along with his wife Wanda Eileen Barzee, kidnapped Elizabeth Smart from her home in Utah, roamed the streets freely despite the fact that his name and picture were posted everywhere. Sure, he spent plenty of time in San Diego, but this was a famous case. His picture was on the national news, the Internet--everywhere. And when he and Barzee were finally arrested, he looked just like his picture. No one recognized him because no one looked at him. You don't look at homeless people, much less touch them.

There are economists who will tell you that some homelessness is necessary for a market economy. These are the same people who, back in the 1980s, postulated that "full employment" (the lowest possible level of unemployment) meant that 6 to 7 percent of the country needed to be out of work in order for the job market to function properly. I don't think anyone's buying that theory these days. The same goes for homeless people. We can ignore the homeless, but that isn't necessary or in any way ideal.

Yes, there are people who prefer homelessness to working at a job. Yes, there are people who make more money panhandling than they might if they were flipping burgers at McDonald's. Yes, there are people for whom homelessness as a lifestyle is so ingrained that they are almost incapable of functioning within society.

But.

Most of the homeless in our country are people with some form of severe mental illness. Most of the homeless did not choose to become homeless, and most would prefer to be a part of normal society. It's no coincidence that the term "homeless" entered our common lexicon in the late 1970s and early 1980s when states closed most of their public mental institutions (many of them unimaginably hellish) rather than fixing them up or building modern hospitals. Most of the people in these institutions had no way of reconnecting to society, so they didn't. Today, the same lack of public mental health care contributes to the growing ranks of the homeless just as surely as a down economy does.

Yes, it's nice to take the leftovers from your block party down to the rescue mission. Hell, it's great if you go down to the Salvation Army and serve Christmas dinner (or, even better, dinner on the 23rd of January, a "regular" day when most folks aren't thinking so much of charity). But shelters and missions won't solve the problem. All they can do is ameliorate it. This is a policy problem for the states and, ultimately, the nation as a whole. Just another good reason for national health care, when you get right down to it.

But public policy won't be changing any time soon. The homeless, for the most part, do not vote. The homeless do not make large donations to any political candidate or party. The homeless do not even pay taxes--so why should we care about them, right?

It's easy to see how people like Rudolph and Mitchell could hide in plain sight. We didn't see them because we didn't look. And until we decide to do something about our own untouchables, it will remain astonishingly easy for anyone to disappear without a trace.

Jon Worley hopes his occasional "donations" to the homeless are used for the purpose of inebriation.