Last updated on 2023-04-11
Thomas Curwen, for the LA Times, has written a great article examining homelessness and the mental healthcare crisis in the area. It is worth reading. Below are a my very brief thoughts and notes.
“The great failure of public policy over the last 50 years is how we discharged people from mental hospitals with no replacement,” said Andrew Scull, a sociologist at UC San Diego who studies the history of mental illness and its treatment.
It is tragic that we continue to do nothing to replace the institutional care model we abandoned, as a nation, 50 years ago. That failure, paired with a failure to build a sufficient number of homes, has resulted in the homelessness crisis we see playing out on the streets of Los Angeles.
I see it at my office every day. The people living in tents on sidewalks are people. Real people. Someone’s son or daughter. But in almost every case they are drug users, likely self-medicating to escape to or from some trauma or mental illness. It is maddening that we, collectively, cannot find a way to help them.
Helping individually feels hopeless and futile. We need a collective response that is equal to the magnitude of the mess we are in. Until that happens, I fear we will continue to suffer – Anthony and others will continue to suffer.