2 ms·
Do you live in SF? It’s quite apparent that a huge percentage of the homeless, if not the majority, have a mental disorder, drug addiction, or both.
by azinman2 5y ago
Do you live in SF? It’s quite apparent that a huge percentage of the homeless, if not the majority, have a mental disorder, drug addiction, or both.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThat’s just for the visible chronic homeless. There are plenty of homeless people living under the radar in their cars and such that really are just down in their luck, and don’t get noticed them because they aren’t chronic cases.
- azinman2 5y agoSure. But they do get captured here: https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSummary_SanFrancisco2019.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSu... 69% are reporting being disabled in some way that’s preventing them from being housed (read: addiction, mental illness, health issues resulting from these, etc). 42% are self reporting current addiction, 39% have self reported current psychiatric/emotional disorder of some kind, and 37% with PTSD (apparently getting separately reported from the prior stat). These numbers are likely higher in reality. Of course there are some that lost their job, don’t make enough, etc. That’s the population that you could expect to make a come back with support. But a very significant portion are beyond tractable. Drive thru the tenderloin and tell me what you see is rehabilitatable. Seems to me the easier story would be preventing homelessness in the first place, which would involve making our society kinder for all, not just the homeless. It got significantly worse after Regan defunded the mental health wards. Many progressives support this cause of holding people against their will — I’m not sure being homeless and mentally ill is more humane. At some point it’s easier to centralize long term care than to ad hoc beds and social services.