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Comment by shultays | Hacker News Reader

I was wondering how there were no family members, old friends etc that could prove his word but that explains it. Quite sad, but also maybe a mental hospital is better than being homeless

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> maybe a mental hospital is better than being homeless

We seem to have come full circle. One of the big reasons for the enormous homeless population, is because all the mental hospitals were closed, in the 1980s and 90s.

I think that news stories about [very real] abuses in these hospitals, along with the cost to maintain, were responsible.

You can yell "Get a job!" at schizophrenics, all you want, but it won't make them employable, or even able to live on their own.

There are a number of mental illnesses that can be treated, and recovery is possible, but that only accounts for a fairly small percentage of the severely mentally ill. I know a large number of folks that have done it, but for every one of them, there's a hundred more, that couldn't get it.

It's just that treating mental illness is hugely unpopular with the vast majority of folks that don't have any family or associates with mental illness, and even more unpopular with folks that have undiagnosed mental illness (It's quite possible to have a long, productive life, with some forms of mental illness -it can even be helpful, in some careers).

Hospitals were closed with the release of new drugs that promised to treat mental illnesses. They didn’t deliver, but the hospitals were closed anyway.

...and the fact people were horribly abused, it became widely published, and public outcry was a big factor in closing the "hospitals" that didn't treat their patients.

That is a truly wild bunch of historical revisionism. In the 70's there was a push for greater mental health treatment.

Reagan repealed the Mental Health Systems Act (the result of a commission under Carter) as part of his "small government" mantra.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...

Reagan was elected as a conservative backlash to Carter's progressive policies. We're talking about someone so petty he ripped functioning solar panels off the roof of the White House.

"Solar panels" - makes these sound like they were photovoltaics and not leaky solar waters heaters.

They leaked water, something you do not want happening in a historical property.

Reagan made a lot of terrible choices, removing leaky containers from one one of our nation's most iconic historic buildings is not among them.

I think it speaks to a lack of practical empathy. Society has costs, and people need different things from that society, which often changes over time. "I don't want my taxes doing to [schools|mental hospitals|Roads|Elderly care]" statements ignore the things people DO get benefits from, or might if their circumstances change.

A lot of it might be coming from deteriorating social bonds. A propensity to see your neighbor as a number, a statistic, rather than a fully fleshed human being with the same human needs and weaknesses as you.

Sure, with a little bit of High School Civics. If it's not made explicitly clear what membership in a functioning society gets you, and you're not shown what other people experience, and you don't receive obvious assistance by being a member of that society, you get %waves hand around at everything in general%

Deinstitutionalization was primarily a cost cutting measure. Sure they paid lip service to "community support", but that either never arrived or was cut shortly after.

A lot of the abuses were IMHO caused by underfunding.

Eugenics by free market.

> Eugenics by free market

That hit harder than I expected, for someone whose loved ones were crippled by primarily schizophrenia. Even two generations back, such people would be cared by family or community, but now they have practically no one. The system is working as intended, it seems.

Sad.

My sister struggled to get basic disability (she was the most socially incapable person I've met in my life, to the point that only my mom and her kids talked to her near the end). My folks spent their meager savings to support her while she appealed over and over. She had addiction issues. So everyone in the court system just saw her as a lazy bum trying to scam the system. My parents had to work longer because of that. She ended up killing herself after a long period of homelessness, finally getting public support after moving to a different state and getting therapy, but it was too late. Some of that is on us, as family members, for having not been able to put up with her and blocking her. But a HUGE portion of the problem was her struggle just to be recognized for her issues. Meanwhile my mom (truly loving and caring, so it drives me nuts) in the 90s was like "HILLARY CLINTON SHUT DOWN ALL THE MENTAL INSTITUTIONS" (meanwhile she voted for Republicans ever since I was a kid, and the push to close them came during the Reagan Era). She was correct that the Clintons were part of that endeavor, but then just fell hook line and sinker with the partisan propaganda instead of being able to assign blame. And continuing to support politicians who are bound and determined to "cut cut cut". She saw first hand what the system does, and still supported it, because I guess better a fetus not be aborted, than a grown ass adult human stays living.

In the article it says they proved his innocence by reaching out to his dad and doing a DNA test.

1,000's of new yorkers would rather be homeless, even in freezing winter, than go to a crowded, dangerous regular shelter. "Fifty people died in the mental health shelters during a recent four-year period, records show. About half of those deaths occurred after suspected drug overdoses...Eight people staying in the shelters killed themselves. More than 1,400 fights broke out during the same span, with more than half of those resulting in “serious injury.” ...It’s extremely dangerous and deadly,” she said. “You would be terrified to go to sleep, let alone use the restroom.”...20 to a room...2018 to 2021 and found that more than 7,400 serious incidents (deaths, injuries, assaults)" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/nyregion/nyc-subway-shovi...

The worst that ever happened to non-violent me was being poisoned with a painful, nauseating antipsychotic. That caused me to be more depressed and the psych wards are boring in america compared to countries that have computers or at least FM radios. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ufnii4xlirvvnhlwegorf/quackLa...

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