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There is no obviously easy path from giving money to improving mental health given our current legal framework. You can sometimes fix around the edges, but the

There is no obviously easy path from giving money to improving mental health given our current legal framework. You can sometimes fix around the edges, but the core constraint, for most people, is not one of resources. If someone is severely mentally ill and does not want treatment, you can't simply throw millions of dollars at them and make them want to be committed for treatment or rehab. Until they are on the brink of death, there is no legal recourse.

swayvil 4y ago
It's safe to say that your average homeless maniac would lunge at the offer of free housing/food/cleaning-service. (which would vastly lower their stress level, which, in the majority of cases, converts non-functional to functional) It only takes a pile of money and an army of zero-skill workers. So yes, there is an easy path.
- tristor 4y ago
  > It's safe to say that your average homeless maniac would lunge at the offer of free housing/food/cleaning-service. You say that it's "safe to say", except that it isn't true. There are many many services for the homeless, and these services legitimately help transitory homeless people, but those who are chronically homeless usually cannot stand (mentally/emotionally) or follow the strictures of these services, things like not engaging in drug and alcohol abuse, or being required to follow-through on mental health treatment. If your solution is basically paying people to care for mentally ill homeless people without /any/ restrictions on the behavior of said people (e.g. no required treatment, no restrictions on drugs/alcohol), then you're asking for people to literally risk their lives to care for people who do not have the mental capacity to even appreciate it, without any of the necessary power to help make the situation any better. It's a fruitless exercise. Those strictures are in place, because they must be in place to make it socially meaningful to help at all. As long as we expect that homeless people will undergo treatment in return for free housing/food/service, there are /many/ chronically homeless that will either refuse or relapse. They certainly are not "lunging at the offer". > an army of zero-skill workers. Dealing with mentally ill people and drug addicts in a safe manner is not "zero skill", even if the other base service you're doing may be. > So yes, there is an easy path. There is only an easy path if you can forcibly institutionalize people and forcibly treat them. Which... is kind of the point of the entire article.
  - blog0r 4y ago
    “There are many many services for the homeless” the services don’t do anything though. much like in general healthcare there is no incentive to helping people, its just a method of transferring wealth from poorer taxpayers to rich people using taxes. helping homeless people really wouldn’t be that hard its just that people with the power to make a difference aren’t even aware there is a problem. for example you think there are services to help the homeless but there really aren’t. there are just people who receive money and say they help the homeless but they don’t, and you don’t know any better because you don’t know any homeless people. insitutionalizing a violent mentally ill man is not in the same category as “helping the homeless”. its about equivalent to locking up a person who says in a therapists office yeah obviously I’m mildly suicidal like almost everyone else. it has nothing to do with helping people it’s just a way to make money and police the culture
    - justrealist 4y ago
      > obviously I’m mildly suicidal like almost everyone else I think you need more help than you realize.
    - tristor 4y ago
      > the services don’t do anything though You're right, in some ways. It's not that there aren't services that are trying, it's that chronic homelessness and transitory homelessness are nearly completely different problem domains, and the solutions to transitory homelessness don't do anything for chronic homelessness. Most of the programs are focused on helping the transitory homeless, or at least implementing solutions that only help the transitory homeless. There /are/ services focused on chronic homelessness, although they are not as common, but as I mentioned, they require participants in those services to agree to the rules and follow-through, things that commonly fail. Most of the severely mentally ill homeless people /aren't/ violent, however they're not capable of consistently following a treatment plan or instructions. Most of the chronically homeless are basically /socially incompatible/ with the surrounding society, often due to their mental health problems, but at some level it's hard to separate what is a mental illness from what is a personality. The "people in power" don't care about homelessness, but it's far more cynical than you're being, fixing homelessness doesn't move the needle for any of the things they care about, so they simply don't care. It doesn't even register for them, other than a visible inconvenience in some cities.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >It's safe to say... Genuinely curious - what makes it safe to say that?

swayvil 4y ago

It's safe to say that your average homeless maniac would lunge at the offer of free housing/food/cleaning-service. (which would vastly lower their stress level, which, in the majority of cases, converts non-functional to functional) It only takes a pile of money and an army of zero-skill workers. So yes, there is an easy path.

tristor 4y ago
> It's safe to say that your average homeless maniac would lunge at the offer of free housing/food/cleaning-service. You say that it's "safe to say", except that it isn't true. There are many many services for the homeless, and these services legitimately help transitory homeless people, but those who are chronically homeless usually cannot stand (mentally/emotionally) or follow the strictures of these services, things like not engaging in drug and alcohol abuse, or being required to follow-through on mental health treatment. If your solution is basically paying people to care for mentally ill homeless people without /any/ restrictions on the behavior of said people (e.g. no required treatment, no restrictions on drugs/alcohol), then you're asking for people to literally risk their lives to care for people who do not have the mental capacity to even appreciate it, without any of the necessary power to help make the situation any better. It's a fruitless exercise. Those strictures are in place, because they must be in place to make it socially meaningful to help at all. As long as we expect that homeless people will undergo treatment in return for free housing/food/service, there are /many/ chronically homeless that will either refuse or relapse. They certainly are not "lunging at the offer". > an army of zero-skill workers. Dealing with mentally ill people and drug addicts in a safe manner is not "zero skill", even if the other base service you're doing may be. > So yes, there is an easy path. There is only an easy path if you can forcibly institutionalize people and forcibly treat them. Which... is kind of the point of the entire article.
- blog0r 4y ago
  “There are many many services for the homeless” the services don’t do anything though. much like in general healthcare there is no incentive to helping people, its just a method of transferring wealth from poorer taxpayers to rich people using taxes. helping homeless people really wouldn’t be that hard its just that people with the power to make a difference aren’t even aware there is a problem. for example you think there are services to help the homeless but there really aren’t. there are just people who receive money and say they help the homeless but they don’t, and you don’t know any better because you don’t know any homeless people. insitutionalizing a violent mentally ill man is not in the same category as “helping the homeless”. its about equivalent to locking up a person who says in a therapists office yeah obviously I’m mildly suicidal like almost everyone else. it has nothing to do with helping people it’s just a way to make money and police the culture
  - justrealist 4y ago
    > obviously I’m mildly suicidal like almost everyone else I think you need more help than you realize.
  - tristor 4y ago
    > the services don’t do anything though You're right, in some ways. It's not that there aren't services that are trying, it's that chronic homelessness and transitory homelessness are nearly completely different problem domains, and the solutions to transitory homelessness don't do anything for chronic homelessness. Most of the programs are focused on helping the transitory homeless, or at least implementing solutions that only help the transitory homeless. There /are/ services focused on chronic homelessness, although they are not as common, but as I mentioned, they require participants in those services to agree to the rules and follow-through, things that commonly fail. Most of the severely mentally ill homeless people /aren't/ violent, however they're not capable of consistently following a treatment plan or instructions. Most of the chronically homeless are basically /socially incompatible/ with the surrounding society, often due to their mental health problems, but at some level it's hard to separate what is a mental illness from what is a personality. The "people in power" don't care about homelessness, but it's far more cynical than you're being, fixing homelessness doesn't move the needle for any of the things they care about, so they simply don't care. It doesn't even register for them, other than a visible inconvenience in some cities.
jjulius 4y ago
>It's safe to say... Genuinely curious - what makes it safe to say that?