That's not entirely true. There are a lot of working homeless living in cars, nightly and weekly rental motels, tents, staying with family, friends, etc.
Those ones are actually quite rare in LA. People who are down on luck have access to shelters, church outreach efforts and government assistance. They also have access to a fairly large job market and a public transportation system that's pretty reasonable for the US, so being rational people they are generally off the street pretty quickly.
That was certainly true in LA when I lived there. That's been awhile but I suspect it's still true where I lived there, mostly in the SF Valley.
I did recently see a video of two guys biking on trail in Orange County (I think) and it was lined on each side for miles with tents and makeshift shacks. I never saw anything like that when I lived there. It was impressive.
I live nearby, and my knowledge comes from a local Nextdoor group.
Someone affiliated with local church mentioned that their shelter is actually low on occupancy, and any attempts to help more homeless were met with distrust, outright refusal to be affiliated with "the system", and a bunch of crazier reasons.
Someone from Anaheim local government also chimed in and mentioned that although that's not the city's official position, a lot of city efforts were turned down by the homeless, and any rational person has been helped and can get help through existing agencies.
I'm in the area, as well. My brother-in-law is an infrequent guest of places like Skid Row and the sprawling tent city along the Santa Ana River Trail. I'm actually not sure what state the tent city along the Santa Ana River Trail is in these days, I had thought that I had read recently that there were attempts to break that party up.
Anyway, from where I stand, here's the rub. My BIL needs to be medicated to not succumb to his delusions, his extreme mania, and extreme paranoia (he is diagnosed schizoaffective). When he is medicated, he can hold down a (part-time, minimum wage) job, help with chores, and can generally be a fairly reliable person in the family. Yet, he is an adult. If he chooses not to take his medication, that is his right. But, when he chooses not to take his medication, he ends up homeless, self-medicating, and will eventually find his way back in to a state run mental health facility through crime. He has been stuck in this cycle for half of his life, he will be turning 30 in a year or two.
I want to make a distinction here that this person has never served time. He probably should've, given some of the things he has done that have gotten him arrested, but he's in the system and so he seems to get a get out jail free card for the types of crime he commits.
He always has a place to live (though he doesn't like some of these places, like my home, because of the rules that come with it). He has SSI that is deposited directly to his account from the state once a month. He has access to health care and mental health professionals (Medi-Cal). What he doesn't have, and what I suspect many folks in his condition don't have, from years of talking to others in our situation, is a genuine desire to, or the ability to, confront their illness.
We are waiting patiently for that to change. We're not very optimistic, but we are hopeful. We've learned through counseling, education courses, etc... myself over the last decade, my wife has been at it even longer, that he has to be in control (with the obvious exceptions, like when he's locked up). Trying to force him to do what is in his own self-interest is a self-indulgent and self-serving behavior that just makes everything worse.
It's a very hard reality to live with, especially so when it's your family, but there's nothing that anyone can do to help a person who doesn't want to help themselves.
In places like Hong Kong and Singapore this is not his right and their mentally disabled are much better off. Much less revolving door, less stigma, less crime, more family support, etc.
Just because we do something one way doesn't make it the best way.
I don't for one second think this is the best way. I didn't mean to give that impression. I actually have very strong feelings and opinions about these things but I tend to keep those to myself because of the culture we live in. I think a system like what they have in HK would simply be a non-starter in the Western world.
I feel for you. My first wife suffered from much the same thing. You've pretty much described her to a "tee".
She's 54 years old now and hasn't changed much since her first "breakdown" in her early 20s. I think it's safe to say she never will. Her's was triggered by postpartum syndrome after we had a child that died shortly after birth. It was a terrible thing to witness. It happened over the course of about two weeks and got to the point where it was an obvious safety issue for our year old daughter so I had to have her "committed".
She spent time in various psyche wards in the Los Angeles area, including the County Hospital. I visited her there many times and I can attest that it was always an adventure.
She was never a threat to me or anyone else but she's committed petty crimes on occasion while living on the streets. She's bounced around between halfway houses and the streets and brief stays in psyche wards and local jails since. I left California when our daughter was 3-1/2 years old. Over the years since when she's been doing good our daughter has visited her for a few weeks at a time and got to know her and that side of her family, so for us it's not been near so hard as could have been.
Getting our daughter away from that chaos was a deliberate decision on my part. I didn't want her constantly wrapped up in that. I've helped her mother out many times over the years and never turned down her requests for help, but there's been years go by in between when we didn't hear from her and often when we did she contacted me to ask for money and didn't want to get back into any sort of program.
She has a brother who's set her with an apartment and paid all her bills and gave her a comfortable allowance over the past ten or more years and she's decided to head back to the streets and disappeared a few times still. Last we heard she was doing a short stint in jail somewhere out there.
When she's doing good she's really quite brilliant, and when she heads out to the streets she's as determined to be there as one could be and there is no stopping her.
I don't see how it would do any good to lock her up. Not her or society as a whole.
It's true, she hasn't stayed long in any public housing or program, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there and available when she's needing it or willing to try and work at normalizing. I know for sure it's helped her many times.
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