Whose problem is that though? I don’t think that just because they’re mentally ill, it trumps a mother and small child’s right to use a clean bathroom in a library.
Part of the problem is that the courts have put city governments in a no-win situation. They can’t restrict access from the obviously crazy, but nor can they compel them to be treated without serious hoops and effort either. So the seriously mentally ill just sort of do their thing and there’s not much governments can do about it, other than passive stuff like hostile architecture.
Of course there is; the deliberate attempt to forbid them access to things like bathrooms in the first place.
It’s our problem, because the fact that they are both mental ill and without resources means that they can’t solve their own problems. And because we’ve spent decades creating this entire situation. Punishing them for the crime of being poor and mentally ill solves nothing.
There is a restroom inside just past the vestibule of the municipal building that’s open to the public and yet they’ll take a leak against the wall outside. If it was permissible I’d post the footage from the security camera we get every single day. But I know that somehow you’ll justify the behavior anyway..
We have a tech school that’s open to the public. Homeless will go in there and take a dump on the floor of the bathroom rather than the toilet. They’re inside the bathroom and still mess the floor. WTF?
I have seen nice dressed young men urinating in doorways in downtown San Jose- where there are bathrooms to be found.
And some homeless- the hard case ones- some mentally ill or on drugs- or both, they have no concern for that sort of thing.
I kinda doubt that figure because when i was on the Commission in San Jose/Santa Clara County we found there were several types of homeless. The first, and the easier to deal with, were mostly single Moms, etc, who were one paycheck away from losing their apartment- and they lost that check. What we did for them is give them Interview clothes, an address to use , some job training, some help getting a job-and help with first/last months rent. That program was hugely sucessful. They accounted for almost half- but they werent living on the street- no, they were living in their cars or couch surfing, etc. They also had a few coupons for cheap visits to a local “doc in a box”.
Then those with mental health or drug issues.
Finally, a rather small group who preferred that lifestyle.
Or a nice one outside, or whatever.
Before Reagan, we used to institutionalize those. Camarillo State Hospital, for example. Another example of GOP “cost cutting”- because the street living population is actually more expensive. Do you have any idea how much it cost the county or City to roll fire or Paramedics for sick street living men?
I assume you are not acquainted with mental illness?
You want a schizophrenic to behave? In which way?
I, myself have Wernike-Korsakov, so I am gradually losing my marbles, and I have been homeless. Fortunately not without resources to get back in place.
“Behave” is an insult to those who are abandoned by society, and cannot “behave” because they do not have access to the appropriate care and medication.
There is a homeless paranoid schizophrenic of my aquantaince for whom I occasionally buy food. He cannot “behave”, he is struggling in a very different reality to most people.
Then they need to be put somewhere that they can’t mess things up for everyone else. I don’t see a third option between “let them run free and mess stuff up” and “put them in a home somewhere” that doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount of money and resources, and have a questionable track record.
Just because someone is mentally ill, that doesn’t give them a pass for all sorts of poor behavior, nor does it make it ok. It may explain it, but it neither excuses it nor makes it everyone else’s problem to deal with and endure.
The issue is that, decades ago, the U.S. largely got rid of the “put them in a home somewhere,” option…or, the “home” became either “living on the streets” or “become incarcerated.”
Part of the issue, as I understand it, is that many of the “homes” were pretty terrible.
If we’re going to go back to that as an option, it needs to not be like that. Which wouldn’t be cheap; or easy, because I doubt the trained people exist in sufficient numbers to do the job right, to the extent that we even know what “right” is for each individual person in need of help.
In the current political situation, I strongly suspect it would amount to locking people up in terrible conditions, for something that’s in no way their fault.
Also, people in the US care much more about their own needs than those of their community. Other countries have much stronger social support systems. Not only does that mean that there is more support for people in need, but the people themselves have a greater desire to help others. In the US, people are mostly concerned about getting stuff for themselves and feel that others should fend for themselves. If someone is homeless, we tend to think that it’s up to that person to fix their situation rather than depend on the state to support them. So if someone is at risk of losing their housing, we are likely to think that it’s up to that person to find cheaper housing or move to a place with a lower cost of living rather than have the state support them with subsidized housing. State funded mental institutions in the US are very likely to be of the barest necessity to keep them off the streets rather than designed with the goal of ensuring the patients have the highest quality of life possible.
I thought the central message of Buddhism had to do with suffering because you want things and learning to let go of the desires that cause suffering in order to achieve Nirvana, or something along those lines.
Since we have moved well beyond the original factual question and the topic has shifted to the homeless and hostile architecture, let’s move this to IMHO (from FQ).
No warning issued, but this post is especially out of place in FQ (which is where the thread was when this post was made). I will give you some leeway since this thread had moved well into IMHO territory before then, but stick to the facts in FQ.
Largly agree but there’s a popular intermediate case of: “Compassion must be earned. It doesn’t come gratis simply by being human.”
Of course conveniently few people beyond their immediate family ever earn any. Much cheaper that way. But they can claim to be supporting virtue, not vice.