this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
1238 points (97.5% liked)
Political Memes
5341 readers
2809 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If we house them do they suddenly become not mentally ill? That's a huge problem in the homeless community alongside drug addiction. We need to house them in mental institutions and rehab centers.
Not every homeless person is mentally ill. Even those that are weren’t necessarily that way before; being homeless is not great for your mental health. So giving them a place to live would be an unequivocal good for all of them where as what you’re suggesting only really helps a fraction of them.
Reopen asylums if you want, but they aren’t going to stop being homeless once they finish their treatment. Unless what you really want is just a pseudo prison to lock them all up in so you don’t have to look at them.
80% of the chronically homeless have life long mental health issues, and 60% of the chronically homeless have drug addictions.
Mental health issues caused them to be homeless. People with severe Bipolar, borderline, or schizoeffective disorders can't function in society without being heavily medicated, and a choice was made to not take that medication (I don't blame them. Anitsychotics have super shitty side effects).
Sure, homelessness might make it worse, but their illness is what led to the homelessness.
What percentage of people with lifelong mental health issues are homeless? What percentage of the housed population has lifelong mental health issues? Should we lock up the ones with houses in asylums too?
And a near-0% of them will ever make progress on that without a home. All of that is downstream from having safe and secure housing.
It all leads back to Reagan. Fucking monster.
Finland already solved this. A regular ol house upfront and then aid in accessing social services and job placement helps way more than anything else. Here's an article if you're interested
Hey now, it's a grippy sock vacation! Get it right!
Lol not sure if it's a common term but it's what my group, and seems some of the younger cohort, calls it.
There was a time that people with mental health problems and substance use issues could still afford a place to live. All that cheap housing seems to have gone away.
Absolutely, some people need in patient medical care or rehab. But not everyone. And those often aren't permanent things. Usually in patient care is only temporarily needed and a group home is a better and more scalable long term solution.
But the key is some people. Not everyone needs medical help. For one thing, there's a huge number of homeless people who aren't the stereotypical on the streets type, but rather living in shelters, friends' sofas, or their cars. Some homeless people do just need a little help and way to support themselves or a safety net.
Some people are probably also using drugs to cope with being homeless. It certainly won't be the case for every person, but I'm sure some number can absolutely turn things around after they're no longer homeless (but not before). I mean, things are pretty bleak if you don't have a safe place to live and sustain yourself. Can you really fault people for not wanting to give up drugs that make that shitty situation slightly less shitty?
Having the a stability of a home does improve mental health and addiction. Also, paying for access to these services along with housing will still be cheaper than for profit prison.
If you house them they have a foundation upon which to build such things as working on their mental illnesses. Or getting over drugs. Or getting a job. Housing is the first step, not the last. People need a private, safe space they call their own FIRST, and the rest at least has a chance to follow.