Causes of Homelessness

With his One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey did society no favors. For over a decade COTTonLINE has written about the scandal that was the closure of our nation's mental hospitals.

We have pointed out society's conscious refusal to acknowledge "miswired" individuals who've ended up living on the streets. Mostly, we've been a proverbial voice crying in the wilderness about this ... with next-to-nobody listening.

Perhaps that could change. See a City Journal article about the real causes of homelessness.

According to a recent Los Angeles Times investigation, 46 percent of the homeless and 75 percent of the unsheltered homeless have a substance-abuse disorder—more than three times higher than official estimates.

New data from the California Policy Lab show it’s likely that 50 percent of the homeless and 78 percent of the unsheltered homeless have a serious mental health condition.

According to new data from the Downtown Seattle Association, the homeless represent 45 percent of all bookings into the King County Jail system, which means that homeless individuals are nearly 100 times more likely to commit crimes and get booked into jail than the average citizen.

Instead of mental health professionals, today's damaged individuals are 'managed' by the police and the penal institutions. Doing so is neither humane nor particularly helpful, and ignoring broken people doesn't work. It is likely much substance abuse is self-medication for uncomfortable mental states.