When I first met Evan B Harris he was fizzing with talent and kindness. So I was shocked to hear he had become homeless and out of control. What happened to him is a story playing out in cities across America

Seems like they are over complicating it…

“Evan’s younger brother had experienced some serious mental health issues and he was awaiting news of a diagnosis.”

“his mother was a schizophrenic and a heroin addict who often paid for her drug habit with sex. They were homeless, moving constantly. Often she would head off for days at a time, leaving Evan with friends or relatives, or sometimes on his own, without food. When he was 11, she took her own life”

“Evan’s father began to suffer with mental health issues. By the time the pandemic arrived, he was in full crisis, using drugs and worried enough about Covid that he had locked himself inside his house. For a week, Evan stayed with him, and they shuttled back and forth to hospital as his father experienced mounting phobias and suicidal thoughts, but refused treatment. At the end of that week, his father took his own life.”

Dude literally had the deck stacked against him.

“The real problem came when Evan inherited his share of his father’s estate – $170,000. He used some of the money to rent an apartment. “But I had extreme schizophrenia and I just filled it with trash because I was so out of my mind,” he says. “I was seeing faces dripping down the walls, I couldn’t even be in there.””

And this, kids, is why the “Housing First” model won’t work. Mental Health and addiction treatment have to come first THEN housing.

  • ThorrJo@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    1·
    25 days ago

    We have “housing first” (we don’t call it anything like that lol) in Finland, and if you were homeless and extremely fucked up on a drug binge, you’d obviously go through a ward to handle the most acute effects and get you on a basic functional level,

    Putting someone in the psych ward against their will is difficult to impossible in a number of US states, due in part to laws passed in wake of the extreme abuses which occurred in the asylums of the 20th century. So far there hasn’t been much legislative movement to change this. There are also nowhere near enough psych ward beds nationwide to stabilize the existing number of homeless who are obviously severely mentally ill.

    Should all these things be fixed? Yes.

    The chance of the federal government or any state governments fixing it is absolute zero.

    In fact, the federal government and the vast majority of state governments are making absolutely no attempt whatsoever.

    • Dasus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      25 days ago

      Putting someone in the psych ward against their will is difficult to impossible in a number of US states, due in part to laws passed in wake of the extreme abuses which occurred in the asylums of the 20th century.

      You’re talking about indefinite holds. I’m talking about a definite hold of 72 hours, which isn’t uncommon in the states either, being a de facto medical necessity, seeing how psychotic people exist. It’s called an psychiatric emergency hold.

      We’re not talking about people taking over someone’s whole life and their rights a la Britney or some much worse case. We’re talking about taking someone who’s having an episode and treating that episode, then letting them back out again. Sometimes that takes longer than a few days, but usually those people understand enough to actually voluntarily stay after the three days they’ve had to stay. And if not, and they actually refused medical care, one could take them to jail if they were being disruptive. I believe putting people in jail is something you also do in Aaaamericaa?

      (the video isn’t related just I imagined saying that with the same accent and incredulity as in the video)