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> All these things exist in many developed countries, but they don't solve the problem either. You're just claiming this without providing any evidence and I

> All these things exist in many developed countries, but they don't solve the problem either. You're just claiming this without providing any evidence and I believe this to be false (in tendency), unless by "solving the problem" you mean "perfectly solving all problem in each and every case". In general, adequate medical treatment and improved living conditions will improve the situation. With proper medication and treatment people can live with schizophrenia. As for putting people who pose no threat to the public or to themselves into closed institutions against their will, this is obviously immoral and not even worth discussing. At the meantime, every country I know of already as laws for mandatory closed therapy of people who actually pose threats. That includes the US. Overall, it's not clear to me what you were trying to say. Given that the obviously immoral solution is out of question, that there always remain some problem with the outliers for which the help doesn't work? Of course, these will always exist, just like there always will be criminals. But that's a truism.

gridlockd 7y ago
> With proper medication and treatment people can live with schizophrenia. Am I supposed to just repeat myself? Schizophrenics refuse treatment a lot of the time. They can't tell you want to help them when they have paranoid delusions. Then what do you do? Unless they're provably a threat, you have to let them go their way, unmedicated. > Overall, it's not clear to me what you were trying to say. Given that the obviously immoral solution is out of question, that there always remain some problem with the outliers for which the help doesn't work? Your "obvious solutions" are not solutions. You make it sound like a solvable problem. It's not. It's really a tradeoff between public safety and personal freedoms. Mental illness is not an "outlier". About 30% of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness: https://web.archive.org/web/20121231000856/http://www.calpsych.org/publications/access/homelessness.html# https://web.archive.org/web/20121231000856/http://www.calpsy...
- JohnStrangeII 7y ago
  30% is fairly low, and your suggestion that schizophrenics refuse treatment a lot is pointless. Some of them refuse it, other do not refuse it, and you help those who do not refuse it. The situation of homeless is not as bad in countries with better systems as it is in the US, precisely because, as a tendency, their situation can be improved and less is done in the US than in other countries. The effectiveness of social welfare programs, health care, and so on, is a purely empirical question that can be measured effectively. Contrary to popular belief, these are not questions of political opinion. (What is a matter of political opinion, of course, is how much you want to spent and who is going to pay for it.) You could e.g. start by helping the 70% of those homeless who, according to your own statistics, do not suffer from severe mental illness. That's already the vast majority. As for the remaining 30%, the suggestion you're trying to make, that they are all hopeless cases, is outright bizarre. We know that schizophrenia can be treated with medicaments and that not all of the people diagnosed with schizophrenia refuse treatment. You could start by treating those who want to be treated, for example. Finally, you still haven't bother to tell anyone what to do about the 30% you incorrectly portray as being untreatable, because they allegedly refuse treatment. If your suggestion is to put them into mental institutions against their will, even when they pose no threat to the public or themselves, then my reply is that you need to check your moral compass. This is prohibited by law and by very basic moral considerations. If you have another suggestion, rather than stating the obvious truism that not every schizophrenic can fully adapt to society or be treated effectively, then I'm all ears, and so are myriads of medical professionals and street workers. Right now, to me you merely come across as someone who doesn't really have anything to say about the topic. As I've said, it works better in many other countries, so your idea of not helping at all does not really seem to be very convincing to me.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    > 30% is fairly low, and your suggestion that schizophrenics refuse treatment a lot is pointless. Some of them refuse it, other do not refuse it, and you help those who do not refuse it. Those who don't refuse treatment tend to not be homeless. Maybe you should have a conversation with a social worker or a medical professional about homelessness if you still believe homelessness has an "obvious solution". > You could e.g. start by helping the 70% of those homeless who, according to your own statistics, do not suffer from severe mental illness. That's already the vast majority. Yes, we can have another conversation about how helping drug addicts is really difficult. We can talk about how hard alcoholics can't hold jobs or maintain a household. We can talk about all kinds of issues that are not solved by simple having more social programs than we already have. > Right now, to me you merely come across as someone who doesn't really have anything to say about the topic. You come across to me as someone who doesn't really have a good understanding of the actual problem. All you have to say is "the solution is obvious, more welfare programs! Throw money at the problem, it'll disappear!". It's just not true. No country in the world has "solved" homelessness while maintaining the level of personal freedom that you yourself seem to be vigilant of. My point is not that we should institutionalize all these people, or that there shouldn't be more programs available. In fact I would argue that drugs in particular need to liberalized to keep addicts in the programs.
    - 13415 7y ago
      > Those who don't refuse treatment tend to not be homeless. You just literally said that 30% of the homeless are severely mentally ill. That means that 70% of the homeless are not severely mentally ill. And you have not proposed any solution or way to tackle the problem at all. Not a single suggestion.
      - gridlockd 7y ago
        > You just literally said that 30% of the homeless are severely mentally ill. That means that 70% of the homeless are not severely mentally ill. In context of the reply, the sentence is: Those schizophrenics (not "those homeless") who do not refuse treatment tend to not be homeless. > And you have not proposed any solution or way to tackle the problem at all. Not a single suggestion. I don't have a solution and neither does the parent. Why should I make poorly informed suggestions on what should be done? To appear virtuous? Well here you go: Every homeless person should get a Macbook and free Javascript courses so they can get a job in San Francisco! Is that what you expect out of people?
- droithomme 7y ago
  > About 30% of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness 80.2 million Americans (25% of the 325 million total population) suffer from mental illness so severe they take drugs to treat their condition: https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psychiatric-drugs/ https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psyc... This does not include the number of people who suffer from mental illness that does not require drugs for treatment or those who would benefit from drugs but who do not wish to or can not afford to take them, or who are undiagnosed. So the actual number with severe mental illness is much higher than 25% of the population. Above, DanHulton tracked down a study that also found that 30% of homeless suffer from mental illness: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19707763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19707763 https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/loose-link-from-mental-health-to-homeless/news-story/34ae40327635d240ef4e12cc7122c940 https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/loose-link-f... > Their results, released this week, reveal just over 30 per cent had a mental disorder. > "The figure was much lower than the community perception and what other researchers had put out there," Dr Johnson told AAP. > About 15 per cent had a mental illness before becoming homeless, while slightly more, 16 per cent, developed a disorder while on the street. Since only 15 percent were ill before becoming homeless, this means that homeless people are much less mentally ill than the general public. It is a disproven myth that homeless people are more likely to be mentally ill than the general public. It is also a dangerous myth since belief in this myth drives nearly all discussion and proposed solutions (such as institutionalization, imprisonment and forced drugging) to address the problems of widespread poverty, lack of universal basic medical care, lack of affordable decent shelter, etc, in the US and in several other industrialized modern countries.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    > 80.2 million Americans (25% of the 325 million total population) suffer from mental illness so severe they take drugs to treat their condition That's not the same as having "severe mental illness". Doctors in the US hand out psychomeds like candy to anyone who has a mild depression. That's how you get to 25%. > It is a disproven myth that homeless people are more likely to be mentally ill than the general public. It isn't. You just took some numbers from one bucket, put them next to numbers from another bucket and then concluded that for some unexplained reason, it's actually the people who become homeless that have on average better mental health than the general population. Non-Sequitur. Mind you, I never said that the majority of homeless people are mentally ill, but there's a set of hard cases that you will literally not be able to help with any program that is meant to get them off the streets.
macspoofing 7y ago
>As for putting people who pose no threat to the public or to themselves into closed institutions against their will, this is obviously immoral and not even worth discussing. Why is it obviously immoral? Is it moral to allow people who cannot make decisions for themselves to live in squalor and filth? Looking at it another way, municipal governments set living standards for housing, with requirements around sanitation, access to clean running water, heating, etc. ... unless you're a drug addict or a sufferer of mental illness, in which case go right ahead and live in a tent city surrounded by filth and vulnerable to the elements, disease and crime?? That's your moral option? Ask politely the individual if they would not like to live in squalor and if they say 'no', leave them be?
- jonathanstrange 7y ago
  > Why is it obviously immoral? Why is it immoral to lock away people against their will, people who have not committed a crime? Because freedom is a basic human right. The moral option is good street work, effective welfare programs and to give people housings rather than let them live in tent cities in filth and disease, something against which to which other poster has vigorously objected without providing any argument for his position other than falsely claiming that these people are all incurable schizophrenics. What's wrong with people in the US that this even has to be discussed?
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    >Why is it immoral to lock away people against their will, people who have not committed a crime? That's unfair. It isn't right to talk about doing things against the will of an individual who isn't a free actor due to their condition. This is very well established notion legally, culturally and morally. For example, if a schizophrenic person commits murder, their condition is a mitigating factor in their sentencing and will prevent them from simply being locked up with the general population. Similarly, you're already treating them as individuals incapable living up to the responsibilities of living in society. All municipalities have zoning laws to control where citizens can live and laws against squatting in tent-cities or on a sidewalk and living in squalor and filth, without proper sanitation, and protection from elements - yet somehow you still argue that those laws should not apply those individuals. So you're trying to have your cake and eat it to. On one hand, you're saying forced institutionalization where care could be provided, is wrong because those individuals CHOOSE not to be institutionalized, and on the other hand, you're arguing they shouldn't be held to the same responsibilities as other citizens because they can't help their situation. This position is arbitrary and incoherent. Finally. I disagree with your contention that institutionalizing people for the purpose of providing care (not locking them up - as you called it) who aren't capable of making their own decisions is immoral - and you haven't attempted to show why it is, you just assert it as a fact - which it isn't. >What's wrong with people in the US that this even has to be discussed I'm not American.

gridlockd 7y ago

> With proper medication and treatment people can live with schizophrenia. Am I supposed to just repeat myself? Schizophrenics refuse treatment a lot of the time. They can't tell you want to help them when they have paranoid delusions. Then what do you do? Unless they're provably a threat, you have to let them go their way, unmedicated. > Overall, it's not clear to me what you were trying to say. Given that the obviously immoral solution is out of question, that there always remain some problem with the outliers for which the help doesn't work? Your "obvious solutions" are not solutions. You make it sound like a solvable problem. It's not. It's really a tradeoff between public safety and personal freedoms. Mental illness is not an "outlier". About 30% of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness: https://web.archive.org/web/20121231000856/http://www.calpsych.org/publications/access/homelessness.html# https://web.archive.org/web/20121231000856/http://www.calpsy...

JohnStrangeII 7y ago
30% is fairly low, and your suggestion that schizophrenics refuse treatment a lot is pointless. Some of them refuse it, other do not refuse it, and you help those who do not refuse it. The situation of homeless is not as bad in countries with better systems as it is in the US, precisely because, as a tendency, their situation can be improved and less is done in the US than in other countries. The effectiveness of social welfare programs, health care, and so on, is a purely empirical question that can be measured effectively. Contrary to popular belief, these are not questions of political opinion. (What is a matter of political opinion, of course, is how much you want to spent and who is going to pay for it.) You could e.g. start by helping the 70% of those homeless who, according to your own statistics, do not suffer from severe mental illness. That's already the vast majority. As for the remaining 30%, the suggestion you're trying to make, that they are all hopeless cases, is outright bizarre. We know that schizophrenia can be treated with medicaments and that not all of the people diagnosed with schizophrenia refuse treatment. You could start by treating those who want to be treated, for example. Finally, you still haven't bother to tell anyone what to do about the 30% you incorrectly portray as being untreatable, because they allegedly refuse treatment. If your suggestion is to put them into mental institutions against their will, even when they pose no threat to the public or themselves, then my reply is that you need to check your moral compass. This is prohibited by law and by very basic moral considerations. If you have another suggestion, rather than stating the obvious truism that not every schizophrenic can fully adapt to society or be treated effectively, then I'm all ears, and so are myriads of medical professionals and street workers. Right now, to me you merely come across as someone who doesn't really have anything to say about the topic. As I've said, it works better in many other countries, so your idea of not helping at all does not really seem to be very convincing to me.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  > 30% is fairly low, and your suggestion that schizophrenics refuse treatment a lot is pointless. Some of them refuse it, other do not refuse it, and you help those who do not refuse it. Those who don't refuse treatment tend to not be homeless. Maybe you should have a conversation with a social worker or a medical professional about homelessness if you still believe homelessness has an "obvious solution". > You could e.g. start by helping the 70% of those homeless who, according to your own statistics, do not suffer from severe mental illness. That's already the vast majority. Yes, we can have another conversation about how helping drug addicts is really difficult. We can talk about how hard alcoholics can't hold jobs or maintain a household. We can talk about all kinds of issues that are not solved by simple having more social programs than we already have. > Right now, to me you merely come across as someone who doesn't really have anything to say about the topic. You come across to me as someone who doesn't really have a good understanding of the actual problem. All you have to say is "the solution is obvious, more welfare programs! Throw money at the problem, it'll disappear!". It's just not true. No country in the world has "solved" homelessness while maintaining the level of personal freedom that you yourself seem to be vigilant of. My point is not that we should institutionalize all these people, or that there shouldn't be more programs available. In fact I would argue that drugs in particular need to liberalized to keep addicts in the programs.
  - 13415 7y ago
    > Those who don't refuse treatment tend to not be homeless. You just literally said that 30% of the homeless are severely mentally ill. That means that 70% of the homeless are not severely mentally ill. And you have not proposed any solution or way to tackle the problem at all. Not a single suggestion.
    - gridlockd 7y ago
      > You just literally said that 30% of the homeless are severely mentally ill. That means that 70% of the homeless are not severely mentally ill. In context of the reply, the sentence is: Those schizophrenics (not "those homeless") who do not refuse treatment tend to not be homeless. > And you have not proposed any solution or way to tackle the problem at all. Not a single suggestion. I don't have a solution and neither does the parent. Why should I make poorly informed suggestions on what should be done? To appear virtuous? Well here you go: Every homeless person should get a Macbook and free Javascript courses so they can get a job in San Francisco! Is that what you expect out of people?
droithomme 7y ago
> About 30% of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness 80.2 million Americans (25% of the 325 million total population) suffer from mental illness so severe they take drugs to treat their condition: https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psychiatric-drugs/ https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psyc... This does not include the number of people who suffer from mental illness that does not require drugs for treatment or those who would benefit from drugs but who do not wish to or can not afford to take them, or who are undiagnosed. So the actual number with severe mental illness is much higher than 25% of the population. Above, DanHulton tracked down a study that also found that 30% of homeless suffer from mental illness: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19707763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19707763 https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/loose-link-from-mental-health-to-homeless/news-story/34ae40327635d240ef4e12cc7122c940 https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/loose-link-f... > Their results, released this week, reveal just over 30 per cent had a mental disorder. > "The figure was much lower than the community perception and what other researchers had put out there," Dr Johnson told AAP. > About 15 per cent had a mental illness before becoming homeless, while slightly more, 16 per cent, developed a disorder while on the street. Since only 15 percent were ill before becoming homeless, this means that homeless people are much less mentally ill than the general public. It is a disproven myth that homeless people are more likely to be mentally ill than the general public. It is also a dangerous myth since belief in this myth drives nearly all discussion and proposed solutions (such as institutionalization, imprisonment and forced drugging) to address the problems of widespread poverty, lack of universal basic medical care, lack of affordable decent shelter, etc, in the US and in several other industrialized modern countries.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  > 80.2 million Americans (25% of the 325 million total population) suffer from mental illness so severe they take drugs to treat their condition That's not the same as having "severe mental illness". Doctors in the US hand out psychomeds like candy to anyone who has a mild depression. That's how you get to 25%. > It is a disproven myth that homeless people are more likely to be mentally ill than the general public. It isn't. You just took some numbers from one bucket, put them next to numbers from another bucket and then concluded that for some unexplained reason, it's actually the people who become homeless that have on average better mental health than the general population. Non-Sequitur. Mind you, I never said that the majority of homeless people are mentally ill, but there's a set of hard cases that you will literally not be able to help with any program that is meant to get them off the streets.

macspoofing 7y ago

>As for putting people who pose no threat to the public or to themselves into closed institutions against their will, this is obviously immoral and not even worth discussing. Why is it obviously immoral? Is it moral to allow people who cannot make decisions for themselves to live in squalor and filth? Looking at it another way, municipal governments set living standards for housing, with requirements around sanitation, access to clean running water, heating, etc. ... unless you're a drug addict or a sufferer of mental illness, in which case go right ahead and live in a tent city surrounded by filth and vulnerable to the elements, disease and crime?? That's your moral option? Ask politely the individual if they would not like to live in squalor and if they say 'no', leave them be?

jonathanstrange 7y ago
> Why is it obviously immoral? Why is it immoral to lock away people against their will, people who have not committed a crime? Because freedom is a basic human right. The moral option is good street work, effective welfare programs and to give people housings rather than let them live in tent cities in filth and disease, something against which to which other poster has vigorously objected without providing any argument for his position other than falsely claiming that these people are all incurable schizophrenics. What's wrong with people in the US that this even has to be discussed?
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >Why is it immoral to lock away people against their will, people who have not committed a crime? That's unfair. It isn't right to talk about doing things against the will of an individual who isn't a free actor due to their condition. This is very well established notion legally, culturally and morally. For example, if a schizophrenic person commits murder, their condition is a mitigating factor in their sentencing and will prevent them from simply being locked up with the general population. Similarly, you're already treating them as individuals incapable living up to the responsibilities of living in society. All municipalities have zoning laws to control where citizens can live and laws against squatting in tent-cities or on a sidewalk and living in squalor and filth, without proper sanitation, and protection from elements - yet somehow you still argue that those laws should not apply those individuals. So you're trying to have your cake and eat it to. On one hand, you're saying forced institutionalization where care could be provided, is wrong because those individuals CHOOSE not to be institutionalized, and on the other hand, you're arguing they shouldn't be held to the same responsibilities as other citizens because they can't help their situation. This position is arbitrary and incoherent. Finally. I disagree with your contention that institutionalizing people for the purpose of providing care (not locking them up - as you called it) who aren't capable of making their own decisions is immoral - and you haven't attempted to show why it is, you just assert it as a fact - which it isn't. >What's wrong with people in the US that this even has to be discussed I'm not American.