RealClearPolitics links to a Los Angeles Times article echoed at msn.com, on homelessness. It quotes interesting statistics which reflect the underlying causes of most of it.
According to one survey, 82% of homeless adults in California reported having experienced a serious mental health condition, and 65% had used illicit drugs at some point.
More proof, if any is needed, that homelessness is largely the result of closing mental hospitals in favor of treatment “in the community (sic).” The mentally ill and addicted now live on the streets and self-medicate with illegal street drugs, preferring them to what would be prescribed for their conditions.
This is a result of one of the most evil collaborations of left and right ever experienced. The left believes we all have a “right” to be whatever form of neurodivergence may (a) spontaneously occur or (b) be chemically induced, unmolested by society. The right disliked spending the large sums of money involved with warehousing the more psychotic and chemically based forms of neurodivergence in mental hospitals.
The result: we stopped involuntarily warehousing the addicted and mentally disabled and left them to their own devices. They ended up living in tents, shacks, and their vehicles, abusing alcohol and street drugs to ease their evident discomfort. Some percentage make enough of an unbearable nuisance of themselves to end up in jail or prison.
Disproportionally the unhoused ended up in coastal California where the weather makes living outdoors less miserable than elsewhere. Beautiful Santa Barbara was one of the first communities to experience this blight decades ago, then it spread up and down the coast as the numbers increased.
Properly understood, homelessness is a problem we created when we stopped involuntarily incarcerating those unable or unwilling to follow societal norms. Author Ken Kesey was the pied piper who led us down this primrose path.
