Plague city

Dr Drew discusses the California crisis that could erupt into Bubonic plague or other epidemics.

Dilbert podcasts. MP3

He is rights.

The problem? Deinstitutionalization and mental illness is the problem, not lack of housing per se.

fake compassion led to deinstitutionalization... the idea that since the mentally ill were not violent, the human rights folks decided they should  be released from institutions.

The idea was that they would live in halfway houses, where their hygiene and medications would be supplied and even forced on them, and reinsitutionalization could be done if they relapsed.

but money for this was limited.

Instead, they ended up on the streets because they stopped taking their medicines, slipped into deep mental illness, and then ended up chronically homeless.

Dr Drew does note: it is not lack of housing: the new migrants (both those who were caught and placed into housing, and those who didn't get caught) are not part of the permanent homeless population. And most "homeless" because of economics do manage to quickly find housing and even a job.

and the problem, as Dr Drew noted, goes back years.

As a doc, I've seen hallucinating violent patients whom I referred to psychiatrists being given a shot of haldol and released.

I've seen families in despair because they had no way to force treatment on their mentally ill family members (most of whom are not violent, thank God).

and a lot of the helplessly drug addicted take street drugs as "self treatment".

Help is out there, and many people who are temporarily homeless do manage to get off the street.

But the hardcore are ignored, because "freedom". Never mind that they are unable to comprehend they need treatment.

as for those who are "mildly mentally disabled (aka "retarded"), many of them also are on the street and exploited or fall into crime. There are entire prison wards full of these people: in good prisons they are separated from the regular population because they are vulnerable to "exploitation" by other inmates.

sigh.

and in California, what is worse is the failure to provide basic sanitation.

ahh, but California did ban plastic straws...