As someone who works in EMS in the PNW, while there absolutely are the "fentanyl-addicted zombies", I think a larger part of the drug+homelessness dark combinat

As someone who works in EMS in the PNW, while there absolutely are the "fentanyl-addicted zombies", I think a larger part of the drug+homelessness dark combination is our -appalling- state of mental healthcare. I have seen people who have been brought in for mental health issues, actively seeking help, spend -four days- on a temporary gurney in an ER hallway before they are "seen". That is hellacious. Even in an ER room, which is still not calm, you can at least close a door, pull a curtain and turn lights down low. In the hallway, full light, 24/7, all the sensory overload of an overwhelmed ER, nowhere to hide, nowhere to go AND you're in a mental health crisis? People, equipment, chaos going by you every moment of the day and night? I'm perfectly sane (or so I'd like to think), and that would drive me to the brink. So you don't look for help and you're on the street. And the vicious cycle begins. Like you say, we've absolutely destroyed our social safety nets (and that's in the PNW, probably one of the better areas in the country for them, I can't imagine in the deep south). If my life ends up being begging (actual begging), hunting for scraps, using alleys as toilets, I think I'd be using drugs in fairly short order to help numb the pain of that existence.