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Dude, I know everyone makes it out to be a simple thing, but it's really absolutely not. Homelessness and mental health issues are associated...usually a combination of addiction with one or more other mental illnesses that are severely disabling...be it PTSD, schizophrenia, etc. It is absolutely not as simple as just "give everyone some money" or "give everyone a place to live". Obviously that sort of stuff helps way a lot, but it is really not the easy fix people think it is. Many of these people even end up wandering away from housing that is given to them exactly because of their multiple overlapping severe mental illnesses.
Basically, the majority of homeless people are also severely disabled by often multiple overlapping mental illnesses which are difficult to treat even in people with stable housing. We should always always strive to find them food and shelter, but it is NOT the easy fix that people think it is. It's a multi-layered issue that requires an insane amount of different types of resources.
Do you have a source for that? I know the issues within homelessness are complex but I haven't seen any data to suggest that a majority of homeless people are severely disabled.
It's a really good start though. Stable housing is a huge benefit for a whole array of treatment paths to tackle underlying issues.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8423293/
A peer reviewed article of a meta analysis of many studies shows a whopping 76% of all homeless people have a mental illness. The majority are alcohol or other substance abuse problems followed by schizophrenia. These can all be incredibly disabling conditions. Something like social anxiety disorder, for example, while can be very disabling on the extreme end, does not cause difficulty caring for basic functioning of yourself. Alcohol/substance abuse problems and/or untreated schizophrenia are incredibly significant conditions which are severely disabling.
I have a friend with schizophrenia which has been thankfully successfully managed. I have known her for a long time and it was very scary watching her develop it and at first and for professionals to struggle to help her treat it. She would also periodically do this thing where she felt she didn't need her medications because she felt better. So she would stop taking them periodically and go back to having severe issues before everyone managed to convince her to go back on them. It's actually an incredibly common phenomenon and one of the reasons why it's a difficult disorder to treat. She is one of the success stories because she has had a lot of help and support and access to very intensive mental health care. Many do not, unfortunately.
Thanks, that's really helpful.
I agree that giving all homeless people homes isn't just going to fix any underlying mental health problems, but I think there's an argument for recognising that in some cases mental health conditions are a response to environment, rather than having a purely pathological cause. Addressing those environmental factors (like no access to stable housing) can make a huge difference.
And even if access to stable housing doesn't resolve the major cause of someone's mental health issues it's still going to be of benefit alongside other treatment options.
Edit: also I'm glad your friend is doing well in her treatment. I've seen how difficult it is to treat.
Yes that's why they're clogging up the hospitals. If most of them at least had a roof they'd be able to self-manage most of their disorders a lot better. Even if they ultimately wind up back in the hospital it would be easier to discharge them much faster. Home care with a roof is still cheaper than the hospital and would be adequate in sooo many cases, and give so much more space to care for the ones for whom it isn't.
And using drugs in their own house would keep them from having to take enough uppers to stay vigilant for their safety simultaneously with with enough opiates to level that out. They could keep using or do MAT until they're ready to quit and in the meantime they wouldn't be out in the street yelling at passing cars. We have more empty houses than homeless people just put them in em for free.
I said what I said because my face is directly in the issues you're talking about every single night I work and every single one of them would be so much easier to manage if every one of those people just had a roof to go home to. Literally just a roof. Do you know how hard it is to keep a leg wound the size of a grapefruit clean on the street? Even if it's not getting regular dressings at home at least it's not soaking in a mud puddle where the best thing happening to it is maggots.