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I see a lot of homeless people on the 14 and they’re just chilling going from place to place. 38 however can have some very mentally ill people on it. My friend

I see a lot of homeless people on the 14 and they’re just chilling going from place to place. 38 however can have some very mentally ill people on it. My friend saw this guy on the 38 who was yelling about how much he hates the Japanese. Funny enough that guy got off at Japantown. Rambling aside, I think it’s unfair to give people shit because they’re homeless. The real issue is we don’t commit people to psychiatric care when they’re clearly a problem in our society.

ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
> The real issue is we don’t commit people to psychiatric care when they’re clearly a problem in our society. I’m old enough to remember when we did that. The homeless population absolutely skyrocketed, after all the mental institutions were closed in the 1980s and 1990s. That said, many of them were hellholes. It’s sort of arguable as to whether the patients were worse off, but one thing’s for sure; the majority of city-dwellers (the ones with homes) are not better off, now. I’m really not sure who benefited from this. Here, on Long Island (NY), we have some of the largest psychiatric centers in the world; almost all completely shut down, and decomposing. The campuses are gorgeous, but can’t be developed, because they would require hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup.
- teaearlgraycold 11mo ago
  If we want to reopen them we owe it to the patients to make them a nice place to be.
_heimdall 11mo ago
> The real issue is we don’t commit people to psychiatric care when they’re clearly a problem in our society. Where do you draw that line though? Are you really okay with committing people, i.e. imprisoning and medicating people, because society seems to find those people inconvenient? Personally I've never understood any justification for committing a person without their consent. The line between being committed and being extra judicially imprisoned seems indistinguishable to me.
- teaearlgraycold 11mo ago
  There may be a better option, but the status quo of closing our eyes and waiting for them to physically harm someone isn’t just either.
- PaulHoule 11mo ago
  Part of the surge of mass incarceration was that people who would have been hospitalized in an earlier time now get warehoused in a place that isn’t equipped to treat them. What scares me about deinstitutionalization is that there are ways that people can ‘exit’ as in: move to the suburbs, drive instead of take public transportation, order a private taxi for your burrito instead of go to a restaurant. If public spaces can’t protect themselves we’ll have nothing but private spaces.
  - Spooky23 11mo ago
    Those mental institutions weren’t equipped to treat them either. They were just awful places full of abuse and other cruelty.
  - xethos 11mo ago
    > Part of the surge of mass incarceration was that people who would have been hospitalized in an earlier time now get warehoused in a place that isn’t equipped to treat them. Puts a different spin on the System of a Down lyrics, "The percentage of Americans in the prison system (prison system) has doubled since 1985" (Prison Song, Toxicity, 2001). This further reinforces the other complaints (in the song) about drug offences landing people in jail, some of them from self-medicating a mental illness they can't or won't get treatment for
- Marsymars 11mo ago
  > Where do you draw that line though? Are you really okay with committing people, i.e. imprisoning [...] people, because society seems to find those people inconvenient? Well, that's what prison is, for some value of "inconvenient". The problem is that at some point, if someone refuses to abide by laws/social norms, and can't be coerced via fines, etc., then the only options the state, and society has are either imprisonment, or allowing those people to ignore laws/social norms. Clearly some social norms (e.g. serious crimes) we aren't okay with ignoring, so it's really just a question of what the threshold is where we do something vs. allowing people to disregard said laws/norms. > Personally I've never understood any justification for committing a person without their consent. The line between being committed and being extra judicially imprisoned seems indistinguishable to me. Presumably the process to commit someone can involve the judiciary, so it wouldn't be extra-judicial.

ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago

> The real issue is we don’t commit people to psychiatric care when they’re clearly a problem in our society. I’m old enough to remember when we did that. The homeless population absolutely skyrocketed, after all the mental institutions were closed in the 1980s and 1990s. That said, many of them were hellholes. It’s sort of arguable as to whether the patients were worse off, but one thing’s for sure; the majority of city-dwellers (the ones with homes) are not better off, now. I’m really not sure who benefited from this. Here, on Long Island (NY), we have some of the largest psychiatric centers in the world; almost all completely shut down, and decomposing. The campuses are gorgeous, but can’t be developed, because they would require hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup.

teaearlgraycold 11mo ago
If we want to reopen them we owe it to the patients to make them a nice place to be.

_heimdall 11mo ago

> The real issue is we don’t commit people to psychiatric care when they’re clearly a problem in our society. Where do you draw that line though? Are you really okay with committing people, i.e. imprisoning and medicating people, because society seems to find those people inconvenient? Personally I've never understood any justification for committing a person without their consent. The line between being committed and being extra judicially imprisoned seems indistinguishable to me.

teaearlgraycold 11mo ago
There may be a better option, but the status quo of closing our eyes and waiting for them to physically harm someone isn’t just either.
PaulHoule 11mo ago
Part of the surge of mass incarceration was that people who would have been hospitalized in an earlier time now get warehoused in a place that isn’t equipped to treat them. What scares me about deinstitutionalization is that there are ways that people can ‘exit’ as in: move to the suburbs, drive instead of take public transportation, order a private taxi for your burrito instead of go to a restaurant. If public spaces can’t protect themselves we’ll have nothing but private spaces.
- Spooky23 11mo ago
  Those mental institutions weren’t equipped to treat them either. They were just awful places full of abuse and other cruelty.
- xethos 11mo ago
  > Part of the surge of mass incarceration was that people who would have been hospitalized in an earlier time now get warehoused in a place that isn’t equipped to treat them. Puts a different spin on the System of a Down lyrics, "The percentage of Americans in the prison system (prison system) has doubled since 1985" (Prison Song, Toxicity, 2001). This further reinforces the other complaints (in the song) about drug offences landing people in jail, some of them from self-medicating a mental illness they can't or won't get treatment for
Marsymars 11mo ago
> Where do you draw that line though? Are you really okay with committing people, i.e. imprisoning [...] people, because society seems to find those people inconvenient? Well, that's what prison is, for some value of "inconvenient". The problem is that at some point, if someone refuses to abide by laws/social norms, and can't be coerced via fines, etc., then the only options the state, and society has are either imprisonment, or allowing those people to ignore laws/social norms. Clearly some social norms (e.g. serious crimes) we aren't okay with ignoring, so it's really just a question of what the threshold is where we do something vs. allowing people to disregard said laws/norms. > Personally I've never understood any justification for committing a person without their consent. The line between being committed and being extra judicially imprisoned seems indistinguishable to me. Presumably the process to commit someone can involve the judiciary, so it wouldn't be extra-judicial.