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Those living on the streets with severe mental issues probably don’t want to be in a mental institution. And unless they’re a danger to themselves or others (an

Those living on the streets with severe mental issues probably don’t want to be in a mental institution. And unless they’re a danger to themselves or others (and not just in the sense of making bad life decisions), they can’t be held against their will. This is a free country.

AaronFriel 9y ago
It seems you think that either mental institutions are unfixable, or you have a very poor sense of the harms of say, untreated schizophrenia. This may be a free country, but we shouldn't use that to neglect our duty to our neighbors.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  That’s not what I’m saying. We most definitely should offer mental care to people who need it, regardless of ability to pay. My point is simply that many of them don’t want it, and we can’t force it on them.
  - eanzenberg 9y ago
    This is an extremely philosophical dilemma.. thanks for pointing it out to me.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  What is a more important duty to our neighbors? To lock up and force drugs on homeless people who have no one to talk to but themselves; or preventing them from becoming homeless in the first place?
wahern 9y ago
> And unless they’re a danger to themselves or others (and > not just in the sense of making bad life decisions), they > can’t be held against their will. Technically if somebody suffers from a mental illness, including addiction, they could be forced off the street. In fact, refusing housing and other assistance to live in patently unsanitary conditions could, per se, be construed as evidence of incapacity. We just choose not to. AFAIU, the Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s that, arguably, precipitated the dismantling of the archaic mental health institutions never even came close to suggesting that such people couldn't be forced off the street. For example, in the famous case of O'Connor v. Donaldson the patient, Donaldson, had actually been living in an apartment of his own in Philadelphia. He traveled to Florida to visit his parents, and it was his parents who had him committed after he shared paranoid delusions about his neighbors in Philadelphia. I've seen people use that case to argue against forcing people off the streets as-if we had no legal choice, but it's just plain wrong. Donaldson wasn't living on the streets; his ramblings notwithstanding he was clearly capable of taking care of himself, and in any event the case was never about his initial confinement but his continued confinement 15 years later. We choose to let people live on the streets because we've somehow internalized the perverse logic that to do otherwise would result in a tyrannic state oppressing the mentally ill. (Myths about SCOTUS opinions come into being to bolster the logic.) That such an approach happens to require little or no budget outlays while simultaneously absolving us from moral blame is, I'm sure, merely coincidental....

AaronFriel 9y ago

It seems you think that either mental institutions are unfixable, or you have a very poor sense of the harms of say, untreated schizophrenia. This may be a free country, but we shouldn't use that to neglect our duty to our neighbors.

marcoperaza 9y ago
That’s not what I’m saying. We most definitely should offer mental care to people who need it, regardless of ability to pay. My point is simply that many of them don’t want it, and we can’t force it on them.
- eanzenberg 9y ago
  This is an extremely philosophical dilemma.. thanks for pointing it out to me.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
What is a more important duty to our neighbors? To lock up and force drugs on homeless people who have no one to talk to but themselves; or preventing them from becoming homeless in the first place?

wahern 9y ago

> And unless they’re a danger to themselves or others (and > not just in the sense of making bad life decisions), they > can’t be held against their will. Technically if somebody suffers from a mental illness, including addiction, they could be forced off the street. In fact, refusing housing and other assistance to live in patently unsanitary conditions could, per se, be construed as evidence of incapacity. We just choose not to. AFAIU, the Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s that, arguably, precipitated the dismantling of the archaic mental health institutions never even came close to suggesting that such people couldn't be forced off the street. For example, in the famous case of O'Connor v. Donaldson the patient, Donaldson, had actually been living in an apartment of his own in Philadelphia. He traveled to Florida to visit his parents, and it was his parents who had him committed after he shared paranoid delusions about his neighbors in Philadelphia. I've seen people use that case to argue against forcing people off the streets as-if we had no legal choice, but it's just plain wrong. Donaldson wasn't living on the streets; his ramblings notwithstanding he was clearly capable of taking care of himself, and in any event the case was never about his initial confinement but his continued confinement 15 years later. We choose to let people live on the streets because we've somehow internalized the perverse logic that to do otherwise would result in a tyrannic state oppressing the mentally ill. (Myths about SCOTUS opinions come into being to bolster the logic.) That such an approach happens to require little or no budget outlays while simultaneously absolving us from moral blame is, I'm sure, merely coincidental....