no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

It's not compassionate to allow addicts and the mentally ill to live on the streets. Unfortunately the "progressives" believe it is the kind and generous thing to do if that is what the addicts and mentally ill people "want" to do.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422609/homeless-sleeping-streets-DOJ-cruel-unusual-punishment
The answers are more complicated than just throwing money at them, or claiming it is their "right" to live on the streets. In some areas like San Francisco the concept is that the "homeless" own the streets.
Any suggestions? Remember that putting them in treatment facilities is considered violating their civil rights.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Yeah, Ronald Reagan de-institutionalized 1000's of mentally ill during his reign, preferring to see community mental health deal with them - but community mental health wasn't prepared or properly funded to do it, so the majority ended up on the streets or in jail. That situation only degraded further.

After Sandy Hook, a plethora of politicians vowed to see mental health revamped and the situation improved, then after the e******ns - forgot all about it. Here's the deal, there is no particular ideology or party that is responsible for this - and that's the problem. Politicians promise the moon, prior to e******ns, then GIVE us a "moon" afterwards and I'm tired of them showing their assess.

Dealing, appropriately, with the mentally ill, is NOT about compassion, unless it is compassion for society as a whole, it is about fricken common sense. There are more mentally ill now, than there have ever been. Some of it is due to improved diagnostics, some of it due to greedy companies providing ( allegedly )community mental health and a lot to do with a simple Increase in prevalence.

Not all mentally ill are a danger to society, but many of them are - and identifying those and removing the danger only makes sense - but there's no way to do that easily. The American mental health association doesn't attract many donors, because there's not a lot of profit to be made off of crazy people, consequently, they have little voice in the Congress. Since there is no place to put the crazy people and "decent" folk want them gone from their communities, they wind up in jail or prison and nobody really cares - until another one slaughters more little kids - then they'll care for a day or two - until politicians get them distracted by something juicier.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

As I recall, it was the court system I think the 9th circuit court, that decided that putting people in mental health facilities unless they had committed a violent act, was violating their civil rights. the institutions were closed because of that, not the other way around. There were many institutions that should have been closed because of the inhumane way the patients were treated, but it isn't humane to allow them to live on the streets. In some places the answer is to put porta potties on the streets, and facilities where people could shower and wash their clothes. Unfortunately those facilities soon became meeting places for drug use, dangerous places for women and children to shower, and handouts for underage prostitutes of both sexes. Some church groups have had some luck with church run half way houses, but mentally ill or drug users do not want to go someplace where there are rules of behavior, where they can not drink, shoot up or have sex are not to their liking. They would prefer to be able to do all those things on public streets, even if other people don't want to have to step around feces and urine, or dirty needles. Let alone that most of us would prefer not to see drunks or junkies having sex on our front lawns, and vomiting on our cars.

JimMe

Tax the Homeless for using Public Facilities (the streets)... If the Homeless do not pay the Taxes, they should be Incarcerated & confined to shelters until they can pay their Taxes...

Towns can even HIRE SOME HOMELESS to Collect the Taxes... A "Win-Win" if ever there was one...

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

I didn't intend to imply that the President was directly responsible for the de-institutionalization. It was part of the de-regulation phenomena, that Reagan was responsible for. Be that as it may, the communities were not prepared for the onslaught of previously institutionalized characters hitting the streets and haven't caught up yet.

Some politicians believe that it is a non profit problem, others a State problem and many just don't give a damn one way or the other. Many of today's homeless with mental problems are Veterans - and still we do nothing. This is a societal problem and it will take all of society to deal with it.

Not all mentally ill need to be institutionalized, but without proper evaluation by competent people, without the proper resources in adequate amounts, we'll not know which one's and without institutions to put them in - it's a moot point anyway.

It will probably take another mass child k*****g or two, before society demands that something concrete be done - as opposed to the lip service we're comfortable with now. As long as they stay pretty much out of sight - we really don't give a damn about the mentally ill.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``
Putting them in treatment facilities is violating their civil rights no more than it is violating criminals' rights to jail them. This country has become so unreal that nothing sensible can reach ears because some nut case can come up with some blather that will drown out all sensible comments.

People who cannot take responsibility for themselves MUST have others take on those responsibilities OR live with the nasty and filthy consequences. That is a FACT. So any society with at least ONE sane and responsible person in it must make a decision: do we allow destruction or do we stop these vagrants from their personal destruction. I maintain that Americans are too gutless to tackle the latter.

If SF has one sane person within it, it will hospitalize the insane, and provide a locked-in area for the street sleepers where they cannot get out and no one else can get in. Let them live the lives they are responsible for and keep them out of lives that are trying to live normally. Those who feel like bringing them food and goods would be welcomed to do so, but no money would come from the treasury for them. That does sound stern, but it is what the street sleepers obviously want. I maintain that everyone of them who is sane could find some work and someplace to live. I simply do not buy the canard that homelessness is ordained to be their future. My compassion for those who WILL NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN LIVES has shriveled greatly. I'm not suggesting anyone actually do this. But I assure you that it is what I WOULD DO in a heartbeat.

wuzblynd Loc: thomson georgia

Having been homeless and lived in several rescue missions, I can testify that the homeless do manage to keep enough money to smoke, and drink daily.that is most of them.crackheads and drunks are 70% of the folks that never get out of these places. And I ate better then than I have ever ate. Lots of churches participate in feeding and it was always good. So I think its a great idea for something to be paid in the way of a tax.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I question your first sentence. I don't believe Reagan is the boogy man for this mess. I KNEW I remembered the closings of county hospitals for the indigent, etc, and I KNEW it wasn't during Reagan's time as President. So I did a teeny bit of research (Bottom line: Ronnie didn't do it. Sorry.), and here is what I found:

The closure of state psychiatric hospitals in the United States was codified by the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, and strict standards were passed so that only individuals “who posed an imminent danger to themselves or someone else” could be committed to state psychiatric hospitals.
http://www.uniteforsight.org/mental-health/module2

Ronald Wilson Reagan
40th President of the United States
(January 20, 1981 to January 20, 1989)

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Thank you!!! That is what I remembered but did not look it up before posting the comment I put up earlier after the claim that it was Reagan's fault. That to have the facts laid out is a great help.

straightUp Loc: California

I work in SF... I can attest to the situation, there are a LOT of homeless people here. I notice it more now than I did when I used to work here 6-7 years ago and when I did a little research I found the official estimates to back that up. I also noticed that almost all of these homeless people are w***e A******ns and I don't think they are all mentally ill or addicted to drugs either.

I agree that it's a lack of compassion that allows this to happen, but it's a mistake to bark up the DOJ and blame them for being callous because the DOJ, like any other part of a representative government, is guided by what the citizens demand. By design our government is supposed to be guided through representation of the majority, but we all know that hasn't been the case since the 14th amendment and the today it's mostly guided by the influential minority. Either way, if the DOJ appears brutal it's because the citizens are.

In the case presented by the article that leads in with a discussion about the homeless in SF, the DOJ action was actually applied to another city about 1000 miles away in Idaho in which the citizens already passed an ordinance that prohibits the homeless from camping. I expect the influential citizens making that demand were the business owners that don't want homeless people sleeping or urinating on their store fronts. There have been hundreds of such actions by cities all across America.

Getting back to SF and the point of mentioning that they are almost all w***e A******ns, I was at a fashion event in S.F. (My daughter does modeling to help pay her way through college) and I had an interesting conversation with some of the young artists there. They mentioned something that I should have noticed years ago. SF used to be a mecca for free-spirits that are big on ideas but short on money. Rent was actually affordable and in many areas it was controlled. This is what gave SF that free-thinking reputation in the 60s and 70s. But some of that free-thinking also led to revolutions in computer design in places like UC Berkley and that led to another phase that earned the Bay Area the name "Silicon Valley".

Almost every aspect of computer software today was conceived and developed in the SF area, even the stuff the spooks at the DoD was pushing for. Eventually, that created a massive influx of technical expertise from Asia. What those artists told me was that they can't afford to live in S.F. any more because they can't compete against highly paid engineers, the vast majority of which are coming in from Asia. District by district, landlords gradually got the city to ease up on rent control so they could take advantage of the boom and raise rent.

Today, SF is THE most expensive place to live in the country. Young w***e A******n artists and students in Volkswagens have been displaced by super rich Asians in top-line Mercedez Benz. So where did those w***e A******ns go? Oh yeah - that right, they're pan handling now on Market Street, hoping one of those wealthy Asians will drop a few coins in their dish. For those Austrian School thinkers out there - THIS is how the market adjusts itself without government interference.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for your honesty. Too many are NOT honest. ;-)

Nickolai

That's the t***h it was after Reagan became governor that decided we could no longer afford to house the mentally ill. That is was cheaper to give them a prescription for drugs and let them roam the streets but he didn't live In a neighborhood where that was a problem. In our neighborhoods we had to start locking our doors for the first time putting sticks In the windows and a new security industry sprang up and it was about this time that our kids began disappearing off the streets

Anigav6969

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

straightUp Loc: California

I kind of see apples and oranges here since being homeless isn't always a conscientious decision like most crimes are but I would certainly say that it's more inhuman to leave the homeless on the streets than it is to treat them (if they need treatment)


I totally agree.


Absolutley! In fact you could call it physics.


Unfortunately, in our democratic system it takes more than one person to make such decisions. Our society is filled with sane and responsible people, they just get overruled by the insane majority.


I agree.


Unless you ask Santa if we can borrow his work-for-free elves, your suggestion is going to take some funding which is really hard to get now because the insane public doesn't want the government to spend, remember?


So again, how do we fund that locked-in area that you don't want to call a prison? Do you really think you can build and staff a retention center with same loose change that funds a food drive?


Well, yes - I assume they would rather be safe and fed.


I think that's an extremely callous and ignorant position. We've all seen the unemployment figures... We can see where the economy is... If there are thousands of unemployed people competing for jobs what chance do you really think a person has if he has no car to get to the interview, no decent clothes to impress the hiring manager with and not even access to a bathroom to wash off the stink? Do you just not think about the details?


I can understand that sentiment on a case by case basis where an individual has proven himself to be irresponsible but I can't support that sentiment on a stereotypical basis. That's just straight up "guilty until proven innocent". We are traditionally a common law country. We should be sticking with the idea that the burden is on proving guilt, not the other way around.


Then why don't you?

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

Don't get too excited when you read the true information:

The closure of state psychiatric hospitals in the United States was codified by the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, and strict standards were passed so that only individuals “who posed an imminent danger to themselves or someone else” could be committed to state psychiatric hospitals.
http://www.uniteforsight.org/mental-health/module2

Ronald Wilson Reagan
40th President of the United States
(January 20, 1981 to January 20, 1989)