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Honored Contributor
Posts: 9,139
Registered: ‎04-16-2010

Re: What measures are working to prevent Homelessness

I'd like put this out there:

 

Mental health doesn't only apply to those who have serious medical mental disease requiring hospitalization, psychiatric therapy and meds. It also applies to ANYONE who is trying to cope with a situation and is simply overwhelmed.

 

One of the largest growing populations of homeless are elderly women. Widowed or estranged from family or perhaps having no family whatsoever, they find themselves on the streets and can't find a way off so...depression sets in. Or a parent with children (or a family) and the stress of staying safe/feeding everyone leads to anger, possibly physical abuse and depression. Being overwhelmed, feeling helpless, not having the skills to navigate, trusting someone to then be used, the list goes on and on for those who are homeless but don't have or lose the ability to get help. And that's IF help is out there where they are.

 

I think if we're honest, we'd all qualify as someone who has faced unhealthy mental health at some point in our life (if only for a brief time). We were able to get help/get through it because of family/friends/medical care. For others who don't, often the cycle of hopelessness just pushes them further and further down.

 

As one woman told me "don't think you're immune to losing everything. It can and does happen. It happened to me and I NEVER thought it could".

Honored Contributor
Posts: 17,739
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: What measures are working to prevent Homelessness

I am sure many people have suffered from depression  at some point. It might not have been something they sought help for, but it is still an illness, even if  they were able to shake it off on their own

Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,910
Registered: ‎05-08-2017

Re: What measures are working to prevent Homelessness


@SahmIam wrote:

I'd like put this out there:

 

Mental health doesn't only apply to those who have serious medical mental disease requiring hospitalization, psychiatric therapy and meds. It also applies to ANYONE who is trying to cope with a situation and is simply overwhelmed.

 

One of the largest growing populations of homeless are elderly women. Widowed or estranged from family or perhaps having no family whatsoever, they find themselves on the streets and can't find a way off so...depression sets in. Or a parent with children (or a family) and the stress of staying safe/feeding everyone leads to anger, possibly physical abuse and depression. Being overwhelmed, feeling helpless, not having the skills to navigate, trusting someone to then be used, the list goes on and on for those who are homeless but don't have or lose the ability to get help. And that's IF help is out there where they are.

 

I think if we're honest, we'd all qualify as someone who has faced unhealthy mental health at some point in our life (if only for a brief time). We were able to get help/get through it because of family/friends/medical care. For others who don't, often the cycle of hopelessness just pushes them further and further down.

 

As one woman told me "don't think you're immune to losing everything. It can and does happen. It happened to me and I NEVER thought it could".


 

Excellent post @SahmIam .

It is so wrong to think that institutionalizing people is a blanket solution for mental health problems. 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 8,736
Registered: ‎02-19-2014

Re: What measures are working to prevent Homelessness

Yeah, I don't think bringing back Bedlam would make anything better.

 

You know why those Ghost Hunting tv shows so often do their ghostbusting in former "mental institutions?" Because those places are known for human misery, like prisons. All the pain, horror, trauma, and institutional mistreatment makes for loud angry restless ghosts.

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Honored Contributor
Posts: 32,427
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: What measures are working to prevent Homelessness

When I was growing up, there was a section of our town that we wouldn't let dogs live in today.  Now that is gone.  I think in some areas, people are on the streets because so much "affordable" housing is simply gone now.

 

Where people could move in with a relative maybe 70 years ago, so many don't live  by families now, and so many menial jobs are already taken and  there isn't the demand for workers at the low levels today. 

 

A lot of what is considered poverty now would have been solid middle class where I came from and from 1950 and 1950 standards.  People in general now live better, but need more income to live in today's world--if that makes sense.  It's hard to get by without phones, and people don't eat the way they would have way back then.  So food and housing is a huge step up now. So people wind up without and on the street.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 10,168
Registered: ‎03-14-2010

Re: What measures are working to prevent Homelessness

Placing a person in a “facility” is not very easy. If they don’t want to go voluntarily, forcing them requires legal hoops to jump through...which can be a long process. If they have an advocate, it can take even longer. The homeless situation in San Francisco seems to be a self-inflicted problem. The city’s leadership has told the homeless that public urination, etc. won’t be prevented. Such a misguided plan!
Honored Contributor
Posts: 10,168
Registered: ‎03-14-2010

Re: What measures are working to prevent Homelessness

Our Walmart is notorious for allowing homeless and panhandlers to cruise the aisles inside the store as well as outside the front doors. The same woman has been working the parking lot of the grocery store where I used to go for years. She has the same story each time,,,grandbaby is burning with the fever and she needs gas money to take him to the hospital. When someone offers to take him in their car, she starts swearing like you have never heard...no one has ever seen the grandbaby, who by now should be at least15. She is picked up in the afternoons and then works the Walmart down the street in the evenings. Same story, different store. The managers of both stores j o what she is doing but I think are afraid to confront her. One reason I shop at neither place any longer.