this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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Not only that, but giving them homes is going to be one first and essential step in ending the relentless mental pressure and misery that keeps them on drugs in the first place.
Hating to see needles on the street, or people shitting on the sidewalk, should be coupled with absolute passionate full throated support for UBI and "housing first." If you hate both of them then you make no sense.
And there are a lot of homeless people who have jobs, but they don't make enough to actually live on. I met a woman who wanted to know if we knew of anywhere she could get a small towable trailer because she worked full time as a CNA but rent is so high that she was living in her car. She'd found a place that would let her park a trailer so she could at least have a bed, but didn't have one. This woman was basically the primary caregiver for a ton of people, and had to live in her fucking car. Housing in this country is fucked pretty much every way it can be, as are wages.
And that's why a "shelter" isn't enough. Heating, water and electricity should be covered as well, as long as necessary.
And internet. People don't think internet is essential because it's new, and those people have been paying no attention to how quickly the world is moving. If covid vaccines can become a human right in the span of a year (and they are), then internet can become a human right in the span of 50 years. It's a necessity to getting a job, it's a necessity to claiming unemployment, it's a human right.
The kind of people who are chronically homeless might as well be commited as they're more often than not mentally ill, or need massive counciling to bring them back into society.
People who are actively seeking in-patient mental health treatment find they cannot receive it.
Unless somebody is in the criminal justice system and held in a hospital until they are deemed fit to aid in their defense or the clock runs out, assuming there was even space, “committed” most often means the cops taking someone to a hospital for a hold and the hospital releasing them an hour later because they have no space.
Your comment is as useless as saying people should just fly over traffic jams. It contributes nothing to solving any issues.
That's the rub, isn't it? We used to have mental institutions and then we got rid of them because it didn't look good but what happened to the crazy people? They didn't just become not crazy. We need some way to manage people who are mentally ill instead of just abandoning them on the street. Putting them in shelters with other people or in homes which they may well destroy is not an answer.
Deinstitutionalisation was also about saving money, that’s the same reason the institutions won’t come back. Community based care was supposed to be available but was never properly funded, and even when people can receive care they may not be able to afford the medications. Most people are not just “crazy”, but there are few supports to be successful.
It’s always a little telling that the people who are loudest against funding homeless and mental health services never complain about the high costs of prisons and policing in relation to those same issues.
What for all the PTSD they might have for being despised by society. Mental healthcare should also be a right, but we can start with food and shelter.