Steve Blow writes a regular column for The Dallas Morning News. He is always worth reading.
On Sunday, September 3, 2006, Steve described his ongoing encounters with a homeless woman who normally "camps" for the day in the park just outside his office where he can observe her from one of his windows.
Take a look at his essay, "She's ill and alone, but someone's daughter," at:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/ localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/DN-blow_03met.ART.North.Edition1.3e0eb82.html.
Steve's piece begs the question, who is really insane here? This poor woman who faces the harshness of the streets all alone? Or, the rest of us who allow our city, our state and our nation to tolerate this sort of systemic, abject neglect?
In my view, the woman may be mentally ill. The rest of us don't enjoy the luxury of that sort of justification for our behavior.
Since the early 1980s, mental health funding and thus, services have been shrinking in Texas, as well as across the nation. The movement to "de-institutionalize" most mental health treatment services has much to commend it, at least in terms of theory about treating the mentally ill in a humane manner. The problem is, legislators and other policy makers took advantage of the change in treatment philosophy to slash funding again and again and again.
Presently, funding for treatment, medication and case management has dried up to a meager trickle.
Here, as elsewhere in our society, the poor suffer because we have decided to elect and to support policy makers who continue to deny needed benefits and care to the mentally ill.
This is the issue. This is the point. This is why the woman Steve describes continues to suffer all alone. And yes, as Steve reminds us, she is someone's daughter.
Does anyone care enough to work for change? I wonder if anyone is asking the candidates for Texas Governor what their positions are on care for the mentally ill? How about legislative change that would bring new funding?
This is not just politics. This is all about morality, values and the quality of life we decide to create in our community.
It is not enough to know about a problem. The real test of a people is always discovered in the action they decide to take or to avoid.
Thanks, John for the post.
ReplyDeleteMy problem is with the advantage taken by policy makers to cut and slash funding for community-based mental health workers once the institutions were closed or greatly scaled back. The institutions were more "efficient," but horrible, as you note.
The funders did not follow through with anywhere near appropriate funds to provide even substandard case management. We might not have solved every problem, but we could surely have done better than where we are now.
Mental health services are reserved for the rich in the U. S. and, on a limited scale, for those with private insurance.
As for the "blonde hair" reference, I think Steve may have been making the point that not all homeless persons are people of color.
I agree. What happens with the poor and the mentally ill is horrible. But yet we hear "compassionate conservative" until everyone is blue in the face. It's time to stop talking and do something!
ReplyDeleteLarry,
ReplyDeleteYou know this need is how I started out in homeless work, right? I used to work for a community mental health center (quasi-governmental) that had a PATH program, where I was the outreach worker/case manager.
Funding for mental health makes non-profit MHC's require their employees have degrees, yet pay an insufficient wage. My annual salary was just under $20k - which for a single person in our area was well below the poverty line - thankfully mine was a supplemental income!
It was not uncommon for even the therapists to be on Food Stamps to supplement their low wages. Something's wrong with that picture...a lot.
Persons with debilitating mental illnesses do wonderfully with outpatient treatment and subsidized housing - but alas, there is not enough housing to go around!
Ok - I could go on, but can't for time's sake - you get the idea though, right?
Heather
EBJ laid out the situation facing the poor pretty well here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-johnson_04edi.ART.State.Edition1.3e42322.html
-JG
The DMN also reported that the sales tax deduction is likely not to be renewed. The paper argues that it benefits mostly wealthier taxpayers (who are more likely to itemize), but it seems to me like such a policy would theoretically be of greater benefit to the lower- and middle-income folks who spend a larger % of their funds than higher income folks.
ReplyDeleteThoughts?