Ladies and gentlemen, this all goes back to the 1970´s when Jimmy Carter´s administration made it impossible to keep schizophrenic people under care. They emptied the institutions but also put these people on the street; later to blame the homeless problem on Reagan. When the liberal "do gooders" get their way, bad things happen!

It also relates to the 80´s, when psych hospitals routinely called for 45 - 60 day stays (whatever the maximum allowable was on the person´s insurance). I recall hearing radio commercials suggesting that parents of ´anxious teens´ could leave them at the psych hospital for summer ´camp´ and take a vacation!

The insurance companies (as well as Medicaid) reacted by severely limiting hospital stays. The average is now 3 - 5 days, far too short to size up the problem and adjust psychiatric meds. These meds usually have to be titrated up to doses that do the job; in the meantime, there can be nasty side effects that require ongoing monitoring. So if you discharge the patient too soon, he may not stay on the meds because he doesn´t like the side effects and never reach a therapeutic dose.

Remember Geraldo Rivera´s ´´expose´´´ on Willowbrook? That was 1972 or so ... I grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and still lived there as a young adult. Topeka is the home of the Menninger Foundation (famous for having famous ´´clients´´ - Hollywood types - admitted for their treatments of various ´´fatigue´´ illnesses). It also had a State Hospital, and a VA psychiatric hospital and various other small clinics, in a city of (then) 150,000 or so. These people, sometime after Geraldo´s ´´investigation´´ were let out on our streets and were all over the place, talking to themselves, having hallucinations when they forgot their meds or the meds needed to be adjusted. You couldn´t walk down our small downtown streets without encountering at least one person who should have still been an in-patient but was out ´´mainstreaming´´ back into society, too soon.

I worked then in a small business college, and of course we took patients as students trying to mainstream them. We had to call the local (whichever) hospital from time to time to come pick up their patient when they began hallucinations or other behaviors that we could not deal with as a school with other students, young people just out of high school from very rural areas in Kansas. One incident that stands out was a middle-aged woman patient-student who suddenly jumped up on her desk one morning and began shrieking about the lions in the electrical outlets. There was absolutely nothing in that school that anyone could do to calm her. The white coats (literally) came and had to forcibly sedate her to get her carried out on a gurney.

Be careful out there, folks. But whatever y9uo do, DO NOT try to defend yourself against violent attacks.

/s

(Oh, and sorry about all the ´´finger quotes´´.... ;^D )

And...they all voted.

Some of them found their way to the halls of Congress, Washington, D.C. Some may even have been homeless in the past?

Is this why the Progs are such advocates of greater public transportation -- so they can export this problem to rural america? These people seem unable to obtain or operate automobiles.

There is an enormous amount of misinformation and misunderstanding of this problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Mental_Health_Act is a good place to begin to get a handle on what has happened.

Following on #1´s comments, in 1975 I moved to Washington D.C. to begin employment with the Federal Government. I lived in a residence for women in downtown D.C. for a few months until I found a roommate and we moved out. While there, I witnessed the kinds of people on the street. Besides the pimps and prostitutes (who would get antsy if you stood on their corner too long), there were the homeless going through the garbage, many of whom were mentally ill. There was one woman in the residence who was obviously mentally ill. She always wore sunglasses and talked to herself. On at least one occasion she attacked one of the other residents. People like this are not only in danger of being exploited on the streets, but they are also a danger to the public. They have no business being put out on the streets.

Not counting the politicians.

Maybe after a few New Yorkers get their faces eaten off in public by ´Bath Salt´ Zombies??

First off - Wiki anything is not a legitimate source for anything. It was designed as information ANYONE can change or contribute to. People with agendas for instance.

Second - Yes Beware.

When a mental illness is treated with pills to make the patient better, the patient takes the pills until they feel normal. Then they reason, they feel normal, why should they be taking pills. Then they slip back into the illness symptoms and have to be convinced in their illness that the pills will help them. REPEAT, Repeat, repeat ... until some innocent child, teen, adult, family member is injured.

So glad I live in the boonies.

And #11 is right on all counts. There is a schizophrenic woman in my extended family who is in her 40´s and lives with her elderly parents specifically so that they can monitor her meds and make sure that she takes them.

After her first few psychotic episodes, they tried letting her continue to live on her own. The last episode was so horrendous that they closed up her apartment and moved her into their home. She has a job and leads a fairly normal life, but only because her family is very involved in keeping her stable.

Every family is not capable of doing this and that´s where mental facilities come in. We need to start building them now. An added benefit - lots of employment possibilities for construction companies and medical personnel.

Why is it that we only hear about the crazies on the street when we are talking about reducing the size of government?

Portland, OR. Go there to see it in action, close up and personal.

One of them is our Vice President.

Only 11,000? I think the author means 11,000,000.

Thanks again to Jimmy Carter and the ACLU for all of this. It´s about time to hold them responsible.

The big city neal me has "bum clear-out" every so often and they get them to move on. we know this is happeningas our parksand benches and laundry-roomms get filled up.
Shame thast these people have the "right" to live on the street.A caring society should not let them do that.

Throughout the past 40 years, the dem party pols have demonstrated that they could care less what happens to the mentally ill, much less their families struggling to cope. This fact is evidenced by noting that they legislated the heartless public policies which turned people in need of care out on the streets, alone to fend for themselves. So many who have not received proper care and have ended up in prison that it has been said today´s prisons in America have, in effect, become this country´s mental institutions. The situation is dire, yet bas statist policies aren´t reviewed & evaluated for their results and thus seem to go on forever.

Shameless theatrical dem pols have no compassion, but they sure do pretend to ON CAMERA, eh?

They need to take a serious look at the drugs that are being prescribed to kids in school (Ritalin) and the drugs given to mentally ill patients.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOJzZjK4XHk&feature=youtu.be

Once we get the government´s finances under control, we need to re-think our institutions. Not only mental hospitals, but hospitals in general, prisons, even schools - anywhere individual freedom is restricted by necessity. Under-staffing and under-funding are obvious concerns, but procedures and schedules dictated by fear of lawsuits should also be addressed. Our institutions must be re-commissioned to treat people as people first, rather than as patients, prisoners, or pupils. We must do what must be done, while being humane about it. Each institution has its own problems, exacerbated by public inattention. We listen to the "expert" advice of those running the institutions, without seriously challenging it. That is how the systems become corrupt. We say that we have better things to think about, until something goes wrong. We have learned the hard way that reform is everyone´s business.

The mental illness industry is a liberal Democrat constituency group. The mentally ill themselves only concern the liberal Democrats on election day, when they round the mentally ill up and show them how and for who to vote.

Forget about this administration or other liberal Democrats ever discombobulating their mental illness constituency group by proposing meaningful custodial change for dangerous mentally ill people. That industry will always be the experts consulted by the liberal Democrats, and will claim that they know what is best for the mentally ill, and that would be the status quo, that they and the liberal Democrats have constructed throughout the years.

The firearms and related industries are Republican constituency groups, that´s why they are being attacked by the liberal Democrats.

Remember it is dangerous mentally ill people themselves who are committing these horrendous crimes, and that firearms are only one of the many tools that they use when perpetrating those crimes.

Take some of the money away from the "normal" people who would rather drink and smoke weed on their front steps instead of work and give it to treatment centers for these psychotics. The tab for 11,000 could also be paid for from the bills of just one of the obamas´ lavish vacations.

I wonder how many of these are muslim terrorists.