It's risky, but I've cleared out hobo nests and taken back obviously stolen bikes and successfully returned them to their owners. Did this with a group of people, not as an individual. Your want to absorb that kind of risk is for you to decide what you're comfortable with.

Usually hobos would rather walk away and swear they just found them instead of running the risk of taking a charge over them.

Clearing one out by the Fremont canal we found several items that had recently been taken from the roomate of one of the people with us. The nest was covered in bins and piles of obviously stolen materials. Bags, bikes, clothes, misc items. All stolen from a radius around the location