“An army of mentally ill … “
No, that’s not our merry little band, my friends. That’s a reference to the homeless population that’s apparently growing on K Street in Washington, D.C.:
“We’re seeing a lot more people now,” said Colleen McCarthy, a volunteer with Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, a nonprofit group that provides hot meals in McPherson Square every Thursday. “Many of them are the most mentally ill.”
The rise in the population may be due to the mayor’s reform agenda, which was supposed to help the homeless. In fact, he was planning to institute a Housing First program, but was unable to due to budget issues.
“If you come through here on Saturday or Sunday, it’s wall-to-wall homeless people,” said Marquietta Henley, an officer with the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District, who was herself homeless until a few months ago.
… Councilman Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, who represents downtown Washington, defended the mayor’s approach.
“The program that the mayor has used is absolutely the right one — we should not be warehousing these people in these decrepit shelters. I’ve seen a real decrease of people out in the streets in the last two years,” he said. No matter what, Evans said, “you’re still going to have people out on the streets because they’re resistant to outside help.”
Many Washingtonians have become numb to homelessness and think little of picking their way through public parks over and around the homeless. That’s part of the problem, experts say.
“Really, homelessness has become part of the public and retail space environment, much like parking meters and vending boxes and alleyways,” Lynch said. “It’s just part of the landscape.”
Yeesh. People who are like parking meters? I’d say that’s a problem.
K Street corridor: Where homeless, business meet
liz | 3:36 PM | Uncategorized
That is definitely a problem! These politicians need to see the movie Soloist which is about a former Juliard student turned homeless due to schizophrenia. It was a beautiful movie. Many homeless are indeed mentally ill. And I would say the rest have substance abuse issues. If we can take a little bit of what helped the guy in Soloist and apply it to the rest of the homeless population, we will be going a long way towards a fix to the problem. But treating people like they are as common as gum on the sidewalk is just plain wrong.
Andrew
Visit my Bipolar News Site…
These people are the true Reagan legacy. A nation of homeless, most of them sick to begin with, the rest become addicted or mentally ill as a consequence of living on the streets.
The homeless are not mentally ill. Whatever “mentally ill” is. They don’t have a home or proper food. If they had a home, food etc and THEN were crazy, then I would call them mentally ill.
No sleep, no safety , no food, no clean cloths, no washing, no job , no future makes anyone “mentally ill”.
A good reminder, mark, but many homeless actually are homeless because they are mentally ill and cannot access or afford the kind of help that would keep them on the grid. It’s a fifty/fifty kind of a thing.
Wrong. It is a chicken and egg paradox of which came first, mental illness or homelessness.
50/50 would mean a wrong and right answer.
In a paradox such as this we have to assume the homeless are human beings first. I assume too many mistakes (as humans) put them there. You don’t make mistakes?
Maybe there is no work for them?
How can society help them?
Giving them a fictional disease does not help them. Only those that would profit from (forced) helping them with magical medicines , would name them diseased with mental illness.
They need a place to live and many chances (and encouragement, not a fictional disease) to change first, before their brain-personallity is drugged into silent obedience.
They aren’t criminals are they? Do you want-need them to be with the fictional diagnosis of mental illness? So you get the excuse to help them with the correct chemicals, not those illegal ones.
Mark: in a dialog such as this, saying “wrong” and then arguing semantics is-forgive me- crazy.
You know that every homeless situation is unique, and believe me, since I’ve worked in this area for nearly twenty years now, this is something I know something about.
Many homeless become ill from the stresses and the challenges that they face living on the streets, and many homeless have lost jobs and have in some cases walked away from shelter, from family and from their careers because they are unable to cope and the social welfare systems set up in our country have failed them. Failed them.
Society can help them by providing health care, shelter and support. That is how we can help people who are afraid to trust, unable to right themselves and are unwilling to engage with other people. It’s not easy, but there is no other way.
You’re setting up straw man arguments to argue semantics. I won’t engage you any further on this matter, since we both know more than you’re willing to admit to here regarding homelessness and mental illness. I have no idea what point you’re trying to make going on like this.
In reading this, I was wondering what it is about an online dialog that makes it “crazy” to tell someone they are wrong and argue semantics? Language does make a difference in how people think about things, after all. I think the desperate and terribly insecure kind of life that homeless people often face can easily cause people who night otherwise seem sane to appear not to be. I think Mark makes a good point that you can’t really tell what a person’s usual state of mind is if you see them when they are homeless – the misery of that kind of environment has such a profound effect on the people who have to experience it. It always bothers me when people who are well-housed, well-fed, and otherwise well-taken-care of themselves presume to be able to judge the underlying state of mind of someone who is not. People have to be given a place to live and have their other basic needs met first before you can even begin to judge their sanity.
What is it that’s “crazy” about telling someone they are wrong in an online discussion? I know psychiatrists and other professionals often say other people are wrong when they disagree with them in forums such as this – I’ve seen it many times.
Aesop’s Fables pg16: Ant and the Grasshopper « Psych Survivor 2.0 Says:
[...] The homeless are not mentally ill. Whatever “mentally ill” is. They don’t have a home or prope… [...]
I felt the Soloist, while a beautifully executed movie which was very sensitive to homeless schizophrenic patients, gave a very lopsided view of homelessness in general. Unfortunately, most media presentations of the population present them as mentally ill.
I’ve worked with the mentally ill and homeless population for more than 15 years and there is a significant percentage of the homeless who are mentally ill. I would estimate about 10-20%. And these clients are in serious need of help. But they are not the majority of the problem. 80% of the homeless population are struggling with other, more complex issues.
I’d also like to say that the homeless population is not primarily Black as depicted in the Soloist. Many people have approached our shelter with questions which indicate they think most homeless people are Black. The homeless population looks like the population in general.
I think the problem is much more complicated than what people believe and far too complicated to address in a comments box. I’ve sought to list some of the problems which I see contributing to homeless and outline one idea for possibly addressing them all at: http://www.kellevision.com/kellevision/2009/10/the-secret-to-ending-homelessness-in-america.html
I would love to hear your feedback.
Reply: