Rising Star
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Rising Star
Any 8/28 perm approvals?
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"post_content": "Please be civil as I’d like this to be a discussion. Even for those who can afford quality mental health services, it’s a tough battle. To those who advocate for better mental health services for the homeless, how can the programs be set up such that it actually makes an impact on both their individual health and community safety?",
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One solution I’ve seen that works: Prefab individual mini-homes or cabins to house them temporarily and safely while they get on their feet + a community center within that prefab settlement with on-site mental health, addiction, job placement assistance etc.
This. The most effective way to give someone the tools to escape homelessness is, surprise surprise, to give them a home. And then work with them on everything else. This is called a Housing First model. https://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764096/homeless-shelter-housing-help-solutions https://www.headinghomeinc.org/housing-first-model/
I struggle between individual liberty and protecting society. I recognize while in non-urban spaces, people can be struggle in their own space, in NY, we share all our spaces. One successful tool that we have sadly stopped using is not allowing loitering. By making people “move along” they eventually turn to a shelter where help is available.
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C1 - I don’t know how you could manage to work at a shelter in NYC and come away not knowing that most people in the shelter system don’t have mental health or addiction issues.
You need to give them homes. How can we expect anyone to be mentally sane if they have nowhere to live?
Rising Star
I personally feel that we need to treat as well as police, but am not sure what kind of treatment can actually work and have an impact both at scale and over long term. The nature of mental illness is that it’s just so challenging to get proper treatment, stay in it, and then live with it. And with provider shortages right now in addition to municipal funding always being prioritized in different ways, I’m just curious what the best and most practical policy resolution could be on this front.
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I think about this often and not just their mental health but health in general. As someone who has been in treatment for Lyme for years after 2 decades of random symptoms; I've witnessed how it can wreak havoc on every area of your body. I often wonder how many of them are living with things like Lyme and as they go untreated, how it can spread through their body and morph into other conditions. They call Lyme the great imitator as it can mimic things like MS, ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia. It's been a battle for me and I have great health insurance; I can't imagine what anyone living on the street is going through on a daily basis. I wish I had a solution to help.
When we start seeing investments in health and health in general as a consumer opportunity and economic benefit will things change. Until than politicians will “campaign” with different reforms / ideas that they scrap as soon as they get into office for more neo liberal friendly policies. As you can see I am cynical today and choosing chaos.
Rising Star
To all the folks advocating for housing, I understand that it can alleviate a lot of things, but what about the mental health treatment after someone is housed? Sorry for not clarifying, but it’s the question of treatment about which I’m especially curious. As an example, I’d imagine that those who are especially a risk of danger (to themselves or to the broader community) likely have very challenging and long standing illnesses that are tough to address even for those who are housed/insured. I’d assume that the issues don’t just go away after someone is housed - even if the costs to the overall municipal budget do decrease per the studies linked above. So how do we address that even after (or even without) housing access?
Pro
Actually a good bit of evidence that housing does alleviate issues in some cases (stress does a number on your health and obviously housing is a huge contributor to that). Beyond that having support services and investing in things like home health aides would help. At the end of the day you’re not going to be able to “cure” every case. But investing into infrastructure that makes it even a plausible consideration is step #1