Reply to Why don’t advocates for the homeless build spacious housing for them 1-2 hours away from DC?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Settle down folks. [b]Homelessness is an affordable housing problem, not a mental health problem.[/b] It's true that a large minority of people experiencing homelessness have serious mental illness, but it's also true that being homeless is really bad for your physical and mental health, so it's very hard to tease out whether the homelessness caused the mental illness or vice versa.

DC has plenty of money to house the homeless. It would save the federal government a ton of money because homeless people have huge medical costs just to get them stabilized before being discharged.

Sending them out to the middle of nowhere is unworkable for a variety of reasons, but I can see how it would be attractive to people who want to get rid of this population for their own benefit.[/quote]

This is a load of crap. A mentally healthy person doesn’t unroll a sleeping bag or pitch a tent on Connecticut Ave because rent has gotten too high. They move somewhere else, whether it be with roommates or to a cheaper jurisdiction altogether.

They do not have the delusions (a sign of mental illness) that many homeless people around here have that lead them to think they’re entitled to like in the expensive downtown core of a major metro area.[/quote]

Yeah, why don't they go be homeless in the parts of the major metro area where poor people live, so I don't have to see them!

/s[/quote]
Sincerely, many unhoused people are not capable of living independently and without incident in completely free housing. CM Cheh commented about this problem of providing unhoused people with housing without supports. It’s led to serious problems because people don’t really end up living on the streets for years if they don’t have other concurrent issues that make it difficult for them to stay housed even when it’s provided for free. [/quote]

Those who've become homeless only because they've fallen on their luck usually end up couch surfing or other things until they can find a job and a more permanent situation.  But many of the ones who are continually and repeatedly homeless are a different category.

A substantial percentage of the chronically homeless (I've seen numbers as high as 60-70%) have serious mental health problems and/or substance abuse problems.  You can't put someone in an apartment with a kitchen if they are having episodes where they become unaware or confused that they left the stove on and catch the place on fire - they need treatment.  Similarly, an untreated, raging addict left to his own devices in an apartment might start tearing open the walls to strip out the copper to sell in order to feed their habit.  I've seen both of those things happen.

I'd also suggest that DC should investigate where they came from - many of them aren't originally from DC, and should be referred back to their home community for social services.

DC laws say they can in fact involuntarily commit mentally ill or addicts to treatment if a qualified medical professional deems it necessary.  If they ever hope to have housing those who have serious issues will definitely need treatment first.  [/quote]

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