5 thoughts on “The revenge of unintended consequences”

  1. To me this is another example of people/politicians sweeping problems under the rug — out of sight, out of mind right? Once on the streets, it’s going to be a lot harder to rehabilitate these displaced persons back to self-sufficiency. And rather than ramble on, I will just say “it really makes me mad”.

  2. How many times does it have to be said!!???

    Preventing poor people from eating properly – and you can’t eat properly if you don’t have a home – costs us money, downline, in policing and health care costs. Preventing poor people from being adequately nourished while they are pregnant – costs us money – by making kids that have a hard time in school because they were malnourished from birth. Throwing mentally ill people around like they were trash, preventing them from getting help and staying medicated – costs us money. When it is all added up, it’s much more expensive to treat people badly than well, and yet the neo-cons would rather go neener neener about how lazy and undeserving poor people are than see that their fear and hatred of poor people is obscuring their view of the facts.

  3. I couldn’t agree more and from what I hear from Ottawa’s Police Chief, the majority of people living on the streets are mentally ill. Of these, some will never be able to sustain themselves, even on meds — this certainly does not mean they are lazy and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of them. It makes me angry that some people do not think we have a responsibility to take care of these people.

  4. Well…besides the fact that the piece is terribly written…
    “The cure to mental illness is a caring community”. Remember that commercial on tv? If the homeless are primarily the mentally ill, perhaps they are the direct outgrowth of…
    Money doesn’t actually cure the disenfranchisement. It only makes it easier to hide it from the middle class. And how did the mentally ill wind up on the street anyway? Anything to do with a mandate to close mental institutions (cost cutting measure) countrywide? There were substantially more spaces 25 years ago. Now there are more jail spaces.
    Coincidences?

  5. I believe it all began with Trudeau giving the mentally ill the right to make their own decisions regarding release & taking meds. He was trying to protect the little old lady with greedy children trying to control her estate. This paved the way for reduced mental care facilities as patients checked themselves out. Some (like my brother) have managed to stay off the streets because they have an advocate — maybe someone working in social services, maybe family members, … Sadly most fall through the cracks and end up on the streets. Now try getting someone into a mental care facility — it’s a joke. They keep them just long enough so that they look stabilized and then release them — I’m talking very short periods of time here (anywhere from less than a day to a few days).

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