I was floored by the reporting from the sfchronicle about the conditions in one of the hotels San Francisco leased and used to house the "homeless" during the pandemic. I put "homeless" in quotes because it is not fair to use this term to describe the hellscape that was this hotel. There was, at one point, a meth and fentanyl addicted man roaming the hallways slashing people's faces with a knife because he wasn't getting the help he needs [1].

If that last sentence caused you to pause a bit, fair enough, I paused when I read it in the Chronicle as well. Those aren't my words, that's a quote from someone involved in the program. Thing is, I actually do agree with the statement. But it does astound me how determined we are to use only the language of compassion, even when describing a drug addicted man who is roaming the halls of the housing of last resort for homeless people in a pandemic, slashing faces with a knife. Our language around this does hint at the source of our profound paralysis.

As for mental institutions, they have a bad rep for a good reason. But consider the depths we have plumbed in street conditions, tent camps, drug scenes, fentanyl overdoses, meth-induced violence, and somehow using a single term, "homelessness", to encompass this and people who are having trouble affording housing, blurring the distinction. I know it's always risky to take the perspective of the future as if it will prove one right, but... maybe we will look back on our treatment of the mentally ill as simply another installment in the cruelty of our mental institution, just that we sent it from the institutions to the streets for a while, but that those looking back will not see an appreciable difference. That last sentence is optimistic, because it at least leaves open the possibility that we will someday look back on this from a better place.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-sros