****THE REAL FACTS ABOUT HOMELESSNESS AND "MENTAL ILLNESS"

Since people, including DUers and other "progressives" keep inflating "mental illness" with homelessness, it's time for some serious fact-reviewing:

According to a study by the US Conference of Mayors in 2005, approximately 16% of the homeless population suffers from a mental illness.

SIXTEEN PERCENT does NOT a MAJORITY make.

As a matter of fact, it's about the same rate as in the general population.... or actually a bit less. I think I read the rate nationally is something like 22%

So, can we pleez retire this meme?

Good find Bobbie, RIP issue...

Because the stressors of living on the streets, and dealing with the indigenous threats and self-image issues thereof, pathologies can arise during that experience as well. Also, a lot of times, the street demands self-medication with street drugs or alcohol. We know what can happen there.

"mentally ill" would be able to withstand the stress, themselves!

It's so easy to judge from the outside....

I'm reminded of the film "The Doctor", about a brusque doctor who suddenly finds he has cancer, and the tables are turned. It's not so easy being a patient.

The same thing here... I really don't think all the "progressives" who have such misconceptions and harsh words would do very well on the streets.

Rates of substance abuse are a little higher, both because substance abuse is what lands a lot of people onto the street and because being on the street will drive you to it after a while, just to make the pain stop.

they would otherwise be homeless.

...are the most sane people in society. Because they have had to face the dirty truth about humanity and the world at large. They see society the way it is, not perfumed up with what they THINK it is or what they wish it to be.

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

right on target.

Thank you for your wisdom and compassion!

:hug: :yourock:

This is a chronic problem. When we see aggressive, selfish, greedy and anti-social people as "the winners" we are then led to see the victims of a predatory and exploitative system - a system that lavishly rewards anti-social behavior - as defective in some way. This makes much of the "help" given to people yet another form of oppression and mistreatment and distracts us away from the root social causes.

As always, cat, your insights and comments are stellar - a breath of fresh air.

Here are some results from other studies (source below)

39% of homeless are children under the age of 18
42% of homeless children are under the age of 5
40% of homeless men have served in the armed forces

Many more facts found in this document:
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/facts/Whois.pdf

The underlying cause of homelessness is poverty and the root cause of that is inequity. As this factor continues to increase (and it is and has been on an upward trend), so will homelessness continue to grow.

after Reagan deregulated mental hospitals and mentally ill were spewing out into the streets. Best friend is prominant lawyer (his brother is congressman) and it took HIM with all his incredible connections 7 years to get his brother-in-law off the streets into a group home to insure meds for schizophrenia. Those deregulations still stand today.. but that's another topic.

As a matter of fact, those "spewing out into the streets" happened earlier.

While I sympathize with your best friend, one personal experience doesn't alter the facts.

when the "spewing in the streets" occurred? I can't recall and probably blocked it from memory

"Despite the disproportionate number of mentally ill people among the homeless population, the growth in homelessness is not attributable to the release of seriously mentally ill people from institutions. Most patients were released from mental hospitals in the 1950s and 1960s, yet vast increases in homelessness did not occur until the 1980s when incomes and housing options for those living on the margins began to diminish rapidly (see "Why Are People Homeless?," NCH Fact Sheet #1). The mass deinstitutionalization from mental health facilities occurred over forty years ago, yet the promise of community-based programs and outpatient services has not been kept especially towards the homeless and others living in poverty (Mental Illness, Chronic Homelessness: An American Disgrace, 2000). A new wave of deinstitutionalization and the denial of services or premature and unplanned discharge brought about by managed care arrangements may be contributing to the continued presence of seriously mentally ill persons within the homeless population."
NCH Fact Sheet #5
Published by the National Coalition for the Homeless, June 2008

I will dispute the "Despite the disproportionate number of mentally ill people among the homeless population", but that's for another day.

We have been repeating untrue "facts" for years now, just repeating the RW memes. It's time we educate ourselves about this.

:hi:

k & r

and because I'm a single mom, I brought my 10 year old daughter with me. She worked on homework, while I talked to 3 or 4 people about their legal problems. When we left, I asked her what she thought. She said, "But they didn't look like homeless people, they just looked like us." We talked about how they are like us.

If people would spend more time looking for ways we are the same, rather than ways we are different, we might be more willing to give folks the help they really need.

Exactly!!

Thank you for this very apt story.... It is said all the time to me, which both hurts and gives me some strength to keep going.

What your story shows is that there is a BIG segregation in this country, and if people were truly experiencing and getting to know each other, there wouldn't be such a problem of prejudice!

"If people would spend more time looking for ways we are the same, rather than ways we are different, we might be more willing to give folks the help they really need."

You've said it all with this! :applause:

And for your daughter, :pals:

The world is, and will be, better because of folks like you and your daughter!!

Their not having a couch at a friend's to crash on.

THere are an awful lot of homeless people who are living in their cars, or crashing periodically at a friend's while sleeping in the parking lt of 24 hOurs Fitness etc.

Sometimes that is harder to do when you have a child. So then the person ends up at a homeless shelter.

:hug:

life on the street is rough enough to drive almost anybody over the edge

If you lose your job for whatever reason -- health problems, say -- chances are you can stay with friends or relatives only for a limited time before you're thrown out. A history like that is stressful enough. Living on the street isn't going to improve the situation. Try finding a place where you can use the toilet after you've been sleeping out in the same clothes for a few days without laundry or shower facilities. And eating right can be iffy. If you get sick, you may not be bouncing back after a day or two. You're defenseless: you can't hide from the wackos by going behind a locked door. Anytime you close your eyes, you wonder what's going to stolen from you while you sleep. No AC in the summer, no heat in the winter. That context will affect your psychological state, faster than you might think

richest country in the world are suffering from a mental illness that is ruining this country.

The way people look at you and treat you is a factor as well.

Going the other direction, one little blow by the have-nots - the strikers in Chicago - and a new sense of dignity and power, of purpose and direction is flowing through the working class all around the country now. One little instance of courage and solidarity by a handful of people is more powerful and effective than all of the "therapy" and theory and charity combined.

People are denied their dignity, treated as less than human, and that is the root cause of homelessness and poverty. Many, at a great personal price in integrity and sanity, persist in thinking that "the system works" and that each person's situation is solely the result of their own individual "personal choices" - as though humans were not social beings. They then compromise and accommodate and comply and adjust to an inhuman and cruel system, and even turn on their fellow brothers ans sisters by blaming them for their own suffering. From there, it is a short step to define "mental health" according to a person;s material circumstances. "They must be mentally ill if they are deprived." This is supposedly the "liberal" and compassionate position, as opposed to the right wing positio0n that poor people are lazy or immoral. But really, it is the same position, just dressed up in fancy academic clothing.

If people who have been denied their dignity and self-determination are to be seen as "sick" (defective, immoral, lazy - whatever) and those denying others their dignity and self-determination for the sake of obtaining status and wealth are to be seen as "healthy" we will never escape the Hell of inhumanity and callous, cold and cruel indifference in which we are all being forced to live.

:hug:

:hug:

However, I'm going to disagree with them on the "disproportionately"... there are figures that argue with that..... that there is just as much "mental illness" in the McMansions as on the street.

But that's a topic for another time...

Thanks for finding the link that was shrouded in the mist for me.. :yourock:

:loveya:

...and Let's also remember that poverty in itself, is a huge stressor and factor in depression and other illnesses too.

Even if you have a roof over your head, if you are hanging on by a thread in poverty, your mental and stress situation is also whacked.

I have never been homeless, but I have lived in poverty for my entire adult life, and much of the time I feel like I am losing my marbles...stress is a huge destructive force in ones heart soul and mind

And that depression is NOT "cured" by anti-depressants, and other silly stuff.

It's "cured" by CURING POVERTY!!

Do we have the will for that?

You have all your marbles, that much is clear, Journalgrrl.... its the crazy world that looks down on us for what *they've* caused that is CRAZY!!

:hug:

To be poor or homeless and not a little stressed or depressed would be pretty crazy! And those who know about poverty and homelessness and aren't touched by it in at least a small measure are craziest of all...and the poorest for not having a heart...

Whose Poverty?

People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are the poor.
- Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community, p.20

"And those who know about poverty and homelessness and aren't touched by it in at least a small measure are craziest of all...and the poorest for not having a heart..."

Very poetically put, maryf!!
:hug:

It was poetry that first brought us together...:hug: If poetry can help the poor and homeless, then we should all be writing...

I forgot about your haiku.. that was GREAT! It was before I really knew you.... I'm glad it's saved.. need to go back and retrieve it.

:loveya:

The Conference of Mayors are liars.

Do a proper, unbiased, unpolitical, scientific study.

Get 1000 homeless people and have doctors, without knowing that they are homeless,
(so that you avoid bias), do a full physical and psychological workup on them.

You will find that most of them are ill.

You vill find that the vast majority of them suffer from some form of mental illness
that is treatable, and some from untreatable mental illness. Many suffer from
physical illnesses as well. Some are treatable. Some not.

Simply put the mayors do not want to pay for their care.

On top of that, it is much like the antiquated and long abandoned "noble savage"
argument. There is no such thing. Ask any competent anthropologist.

Similarly there is really no such thing as the "healthy homeless person".

It is a myth.

Cheers.

Robert Morpheal

Have you done this "study"? I would honestly like to know ho you can state your case so definitively, are you a competent anthropologist per chance? Have you been homeless? Have you known any homeless people?

You have carefully framed this in such a way that will lead people to a false conclusion.

Here is a more honest and plausible explanation for what you are describing:

Take any 1000 people - "winners" - put them on the street for 12 months, and then check on their health, mental and otherwise.

Your post implies that people are homeless because they are sick.

They are sick because they are homeless, and they are homeless because they have been abused and cast aside, and they have been abused and tossed aside because we see bullying, aggression, and authoritarianism as "healthy" and "successful" and reward the people who prey on the rest of the population and call them "winners."

Confusing people on this - seeing the consequences of oppression on the victims as though those consequences were the cause of the oppression - is the age old apology and rationale of the oppressors and aggressors and those admiring and identifying with them.

Keep a person in a mud hole, and then drag them out and say "see? These people are all muddy. That is why they belong in a mud hole. If they weren't muddy people, they would not be having the problems they are having. They should be clean people - like I am. Don't ask me to be sympathetic to their plight. They should be forced to submit to mandatory baths, but they won't obey, because they are muddy people, and that is the way muddy people are. There is little or nothing we can do for them."

The idea that we need to psychoanalyze people to find out why they are not arrogant, selfish, bullying authoritarians and control freaks so that they can be "winners" is itself the mental illness.

that those who are running the show are, indeed, not too healthy themselves.

However, the point of the OP is that the recognized level of all "mental illness", from whatever cause, in the homeless population is 16%.

NOT the overwhelming majority, as is popularly thought, and certainly not the 100% that this poster wants to claim.

"The idea that we need to psychoanalyze people to find out why they are not arrogant, selfish, bullying authoritarians and control freaks so that they can be "winners" is itself the mental illness."

Excellently put! :applause:

This is a fantastic analysis! Great job!

You hit the nail on the head.

The mayors report used the definition "severe and persistent" mental illness, IIRC.

That is w-a-a-y different from 20% of the general population being diagnosable with a mental disorder at some point during a given year.

The two aren't the same at all.

what i think is really interesting is that most people assume that mental illness
somehow has something to do with the homeless population, as if, homelessness
causes mental illness or the other way around. in ancient jewish cultures
families would take care of each other so things like this wouldn't happen.
i wonder how removed we are from our past and is it a good thing?

The idea that there are less mentally ill homeless people than in the general population is ludicrous on its face, IMO. This comes from my personal observation and contact with homeless people. Granted, I am seeing the ones I see and not all, but look at it this way: why do people become homeless? Many reasons, for sure, but examine them individually. For instance, a person who may have worked and gets fired: why did s/he get fired? Even if it was a layoff due to the economy, why no money saved up? Sure, sometimes it's literally a case of living hand to mouth, but manic depression can cause people in their manic state to spend money like water. Likewise, people sometimes try and heal their depression by buying unnecessary items. Another cause for being fired is substance abuse. Believe it or not, addiction is considered a form of mental illness. I think the fallacy of mental illness is that it is simply schizophrenia, but that isn't the case at all. I am not going to continue, but I just wanted to explore this a bit. I hear a little bit of prejudice (not malicious, understand) in some of the posts. Mental illness comes in all forms and is nothing to be ashamed about.

Here's an MSW's (Master of Social Work) perspective on this:

A good place to start looking at statistics on the disproportionality as compared to the general population would be the National Coalition for the Homeless http://nationalhomeless.org

You're point is understood in that no one should ever use mental illness as a justification to brush off the seriousness of homelessness in America. Why would anyone do that in the first place?

What we should acknowledge however, is that unattended mental illness has devastating consequences on human lives. It most certain does increase the likelihood of falling into homelessness. Further, it is not just potential causal contributor, it can also be effect - the effect of homelessness can lead to all kinds of biopsychosocial problems.

Finally, in some of these studies the definition of "mental illness" can be very narrow. If you broaden to to include all diagnosis of the DSM-IV (including things like alcoholism, PTSD, etc.) then you find that both the national percentage and the percentage amoung the homeless population go up, but the percentage in the homeless population goes up disproprotionately. This should make logical sense, given the particular vulnerability of that population, the extreme lack of resources, social supports, and huge access barriers.

Cheers,
PH

And I ask you just what kind of person creates this"extreme lack of resources, social supports, and huge access barriers."?
A financial abuser with political or corporate bullies,and the ,look the other way,nose to the grindstone,moderate, obedient to authority,"muddle class" are who by their own fantasies of"making it"that give the bullies exploiting us all the "permission" to take more and more away from all to feed an insatiable greed and extravagant lifestyle no one has a right to have..

The RICH powerful sociopaths authoritarians and narcissists the so called"winners" are the problem for they are morally ill.And they would take it all and fuck everyone else over if they could get away with it.
It is those with power and social positions and money that CAUSE this problem.

The homeless aren't the problem,the RICH are.The greedy create the needy.
The ones at the top are who created mental illness which also has a SOCIAL CAUSE, it is not just an individual's issues getting out of hand , for we all live inside a society and society can break people if society itself is sick when the ones leading it have no sense of empathy or insight..Society can harm people through stress and abuse.Societal abuse isn't recognized yet by most people as abuse,but that is exactly what it is.

on the topic. This stinks. This presentation of such an inaccurate number as a FACT that "progressives" need to know is completely laughable. In addition to the source being worthless, the homeless are very hard to survey, because, you know, they don't have homes. It requires advanced methodological techniques and any figure that is calculated should not be presented as a fact, but an estimate. Additionally, the rural homeless are an even harder population to survey because of the geographic distance between homeless individuals and relative lack of social service organizations.

Progressives are not compounding the issue of homelessness and mental illness, reality is. I mean, I was 5 when it ended, but the 70's was a time of an experimental de-institutionalization of hospitals for the mentally ill. The idea was that families were best suited to care for the mentally ill because they have emotional attachments and the institutional abuses were a result of a lack of emotional attachments. The result was, in large part, that families abandoned mentally ill members because they are too disruptive and economically unproductive. Of course, family members could not deal with the mental illness and lacked the training and knowledge to understand the pitfalls and issues. Thus, especially during the 80's, large populations of homeless were mentally ill. The re-institutionalization of some, either prison or hospital care has likely reduced the ratio, but once again, any calculation is a crude estimation.

And finally, do you think the homeless population is assessed for their mental stability. Really? I mean come on. If we did apply the test for mental illness for every homeless person, assuming we could find them, I think you would find that the number was quite high. I guess living on the streets is like, you know, totally easy and cool and what not. Yeah, don't worry about them bobolink. They are all good. If not mental illness that leads to homelessness, is it not reasonable to assume that the significant strains associated with homelessness might lead to mental illness?

WAR causes PSTD, PSTD is a PSYCHIATRIC INJURY ,(not a mental illness.PSTD is caused by either abuse, a traumatic event or by fighting in wars .
NATIONAL VETERANS HOMELESSNESS STATISTICS

About one-third of the adult homeless population has served their country in the Armed Services. On any given day, as many as 250,000 veterans (male and female) are living on the streets or in shelters.
http://unitedveterans.org/facts.html

Wars are games of theft of resources on a national scale.Wars are started by insulated,bored,rich ,politically powerful(undeserved)selfish arrogant sociopath "leaders"that most of the population for some reason refuse to see as the TOXIN to THE MENTAL HEALTH OF SOCIETY AT LARGE THAT THEY ARE..The arrogant asshole"winners" people fawn over or desire to be like ,These "winners" take the MOST from others,and it is they who start the wars but most of the time these"winners"never fight or ever incur risk to themselves or their kids.. To the arrogant rich powerful socioppath pigs a war is nothing but a big game of let's you and him fight.And the instigators of wars never get hurt.
http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay38.htm

And frankly if America would quit being a bully empire because we let bullies run it with zilch accountability maybe there would be less wars and less PSTD,Less veterans, less veterans on the street. Also PSTD is caused by rape,sociopath problem causing a psychiatric injury to the raped person ,as does child abuse and all forms of abuse perpetrated by bullies authoritarians and sociopaths
The so called Winners ,THEY are the PROBLEM that creates and relies on a large part of the population to be made POWERLESS.
Because for one segment of a population to be dominant,have it all,control it all,and be "leaders" The rest must be taught to submit accept their lot in life and bow to authority and obey it.
All major Religions teach this shit in some way or another and parents drill it into their own kids heads,schooling finishes off by making the child broken enough to accept life as a expendable drone for the corporations..


If we as a society could find a way to contain,or get rid of authoritarian,sociopath and narcissists, and the violence and poverty their selfishness and overweening ambitions causes others,poverty and violence will plummet,the world might actually find peace one day because the non "winner" non-zero sum minded non-assholes, the people you call "losers" know how to share..and are not threatened by others NOT like themselves,so much they will hurt,bully,scapegoat,humiliate,shame,dehumanize people to make them be like they want them to be!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E6DB1E38F930A25757C0A9629C8B63

Psychiatric injury, indeed!

And I still maintain that those who are judging all this shit are the most "mentally ill" of all!

If heartlessness was in the DSM-IV, as it should be, the whole profession would go up in flames!

Good to see you telling people how it REALLY IS.
I like that you are not letting the comfortable ones bullshit themselves and anyone else wanting to go along with such deceptive,bigoted ,ignorant crap the OP claims.

"deceptive,bigoted ,ignorant crap the OP claims."

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

of homeless people and mental illness now, but I do believe they are much lower than previously
thought.Links I checked ranged from 13% to 20%. That's still not a majority by any means.


I realize how many families with children are now homeless due to the housing meltdown.
Most of us who do have homes/apartments could lose them very easily. We are just one
calamity away.

So yes, I hear you Bobbolink!

In all truth and fairness, the vast majority of homeless people are NOT mentally ill.
I know those who are but they are in the minority.
Everyone needs help- with housing and medical help if they need it.

For someone to tell you not to "think about" the stigma of mental illness is arrogance and
worse at its height.

We as a society have stigmatized the homeless unmercifully.

That needs to stop now.

The most disturbing fact about homelessness is that judging by how compassionately society addresses the problem obviously the business and political Establishment that rules our society doesn't care a great deal about the underclass it's in the process of growing.