That makes sense if they are the same problem. In this case I think we've just linguistically bundled them together as "homeless" but they are actually completely distinct problems and groups.
I spent nearly six years homeless. I spent a lot of years suicidal. I have an incurable medical condition.
I'm back in housing. I'm healthier. I'm rarely suicidal these days.
But when you look at the path that people took to being chronically visibly homeless on the street the pre-cursor in general isn't affordable housing.
> Roger’s parents wondered why, with so many advances in the science of mental health, their brilliant son was talking to voices and eating out of garbage cans.
Their family members may care about them and still be part of the problem. It's really common for people to want to save face and swear it's not their fault, it's something else. In such cases, they won't change. They won't take responsibility for their role. They will blame something else, anything else.
I think it's a mistake to just take the word of a relative as to what went wrong in a case where they might be part of what went wrong. But I usually don't say that because I know that's likely to get really negative reactions from people.
Suffice it to say I still don't agree with you and there's probably nothing to be gained from discussing this further.
If it were feasible for someone to rent a room for not much money and live decently without a car in a walkable neighborhood such that working part-time with decent wages or full-time minimum wage allowed a person their independence, then people with impairments wouldn't be prisoners of dysfunctional and stressed families who are often doing all the wrong things because their scared to death and don't know how to fix anything.
We've built a world in which only a small number of people can possibly keep up the rat race. We've torn down more than a million SROs which used to be normal housing and we now think of that as only housing for homeless people, not housing for young, single adults or childless couples or seniors or students.
(SRO stands for single room occupancy. Copy-paste isn't working for me at the moment, so I can't provide a link.)
In the US, it's nigh impossible to live without a car. It's nigh impossible to find someplace really cheap in a walkable neighborhood that's suitable for a household of one to three people.
Parents who know their child can't function well enough to work all the damn time and afford an expensive home and expensive car etc know this is a nightmare from which the entire family has no escape route.
The escape route for everyone is to make affordable housing in walkable neighborhoods the norm again so ordinary people who can function some of the time but can't run full throttle all of the time can protect their own agency, establish their independence and not be driven crazy by other people freaking out about the burden of caring for them forever with no hope of a solution.
I can work part-time. I can't work a regular job.
I currently live someplace cheap in a walkable setting. I've grown healthier and more functional because of it.
I would like to replicate that and make it more the norm in this country, like it once was.
That's a thing that works but it's a thing you aren't going to find plausible if your focus is on how to deal with people after everything has gone wrong and it looks unfixable. It's fixable. It's also very much preventable in many cases.
We just refuse to work on that. We are too busy screaming about how the sky is falling.
I was asking specifically about the person that is dealing with schizophrenia in the example that you provided. What are the next steps in resolution.
To whatever degree a mental illness is treatable with medication, it can be viewed as a physical ailment with somatopsychic symptoms.
I've already said that, elsewhere in this article discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30334409
If that isn't computing for you, it isn't going to get better to keep telling me I'm wrong and you don't agree.
Your mental models of this problem space and mine clearly aren't jibing. This form of engagement isn't likely to bridge the gap between where you are on this and where I am.
I've spent years talking about this stuff online, including on HN a whole lot. It's not been a waste of time but there's only so far that goes.
At this point, my focus is on trying to flesh out a potential pilot project -- like I said in my first comment.
Sometimes words get in the way. Sometimes the best thing to do is do it and show people.
That's what I hope to do though I may not be able to. I'm not wealthy. I'm not connected. Most of the world does not see what I see.
(Shrug)
Repeatedly mentioning that you spent years talking about this has absolutely no bearing on me. It's not my mental model that isn't working with yours. It's really your language and how you are approaching basic questions that are asking for a clarification on your insight.
It definitely seems like words are getting in the way for you then if you can't do the simplest of explanations. Have a good day.