A friend of the blog writes:
When the Highland Park dwelling Executive Director for Union Park District Council wags his finger at people asking what they can do to get vagrants away from their bedroom windows, telling them “just advocate for more housing” and the reality is, these vagrants don’t want housing, they just want freedom to shoot up wherever, whenever-
Mr. Long – who, as a “district council” employee is in effect a double-A farm club player for the Saint Paul DFL machine – will never have to face any consequences for his belief, since homeless, addicted people are worth more to his real bosses, the DFL, as drug-addicted vagrants than not.
He’s got his own lawn chair? Or’d he just kype one from the people who live there? Moreover, that’s a nice looking garden; does the resident who wants to go out and “garden” have to work around that a55h0le?
This is the big city? Theodore Dalrymple once commented that political correctness is primarily intended to humiliate and compel submission. Brandon Long’s comment indicates that humiliation and compelled submission can be used in other venues as well.
I think the “garden” in this picture is actually public property that is adjacent to some apartments/houses. I’ve heard MNDOT owns it and a rogue area citizen tends it.
This is exactly how leftists turned the West coast turned a 3rd world sh*thole. I often read about Twin city leftists traveling to SF, LA, Seattle & Portland (they really love Portland) to see “best practices”. Best practices in leftist land revolve around encouraging and facilitating de-humanizing behaviors (deviant sex, drug use, violence, complete rejection of morality, parent-less child rearing &etc), and then grabbing enough cash to ensure politics pays well enough to keep the elite out of sight, sound and especially reach of the wretched mess they’ve created.
I’ve been carping on MN, perhaps y’all are tired of it. But I witnessed, first hand, how the SF Bay Area evolved from a great place to live into what it is today, and I see the exact same things in the Twin cities, albeit in a vastly accelerated fashion.
There will come a day when y’all will be reminiscing of the good old days when bums had the decency to shoot their smack in the bushes and dispose of their needles in the flowers….it’s right around the corner and I don’t think there is anything y’all can do about it now.
Paraphrasing Long only slightly: “Call those bigots who oppose slaughtering children before you start costing the city money they should be spending on sustainability. They’re the ones who should be dealing with the hopeless and poor, not folks who believe as I do.”
So now it’s the unenlightened believers who should be helping the downtrodden, not the innumerable state and city agencies explicitly created to do the exact same task?
These are people that need to be in mental institutions that Reagan closed down and they havent re-opened for some reason. I know you view him as close to a God Mitch but that was by far his dumbest move. These people need serious help.
Prince of Darkness, I offer to buy you a Kindle book.
https://www.amazon.com/My-Brother-Ron-Personal-Deinstitutionalization-ebook/dp/B008E0LRQE
Send Mitch your email address and I’ll buy the book for you. In fact, any of SITD’s readers, I’ll make you the same offer. Kindle version only.
Written by a Second Amendment scholar and historian, it explains how and why mental institutions were closed. Without understanding that, you can’t understand the current societal problems including mass shootings.
@PoD, it wasn’t Reagan alone that closed them in Kali. He followed the lead of the libs who supported the idea that living on the streets was a “lifestyle choice” and that too many folks were too permanently institutionalized.
On the institutionalization, both were right, but then, as now, there was insufficient support in communities for those with mental illness to live outside institutions. There were high-minded ideas that resources would be found to support those who didn’t quite need to be institutionalized, but couldn’t function without support. It didn’t help that there was no legal foundation for forcing folks into things like group homes and that the only choices were institutionalization or release.
Joe I have no problem buying it myself, plus Im old school I still dont have a Kindle and nev er plan to, I like physical books but its on my list now for sure thanks for the link.
nerd, fair it just seemed like a huge scar people dont talk about. But Im open to being wrong about this. I’ll read up on it. Thanks guys,
I cant think of a solution to this problem that conservatives would endorse such that it require tax expenditures and a wave of African immigrants to staff whatever institutions we build to institutionalize the vagrants.
Its to say, there is no solution, and ambient urban homeless populations are a permanent fixture now. Liberals would say “put up low income housing”, but that’s not going to happen either… there’s no economic payoff to housing people who don’t / cant pay rent.
Whenever there a societal problem: Throw taxpayer money at it, that will solve the problem. Because I mean LBJ’s war on poverty has worked so well over the last 40-50 years…
POD, Nerd,
look closely at the deinstitutionalization legislation of the 70s-90s and you find Ted Kennedy’s fingerprints all over it. Start with his role in 1973 when the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee of Labor and Public Welfare investigated the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. The Tuskegee investigation gave Kennedy the political capital for the “mental health” reforms he pushed through the end of the century.
^ See, there isn’t even a single way to throw money at this problem that left / lib / prog / corporate oligopolies that runs cities would be comfortable with..
You can’t build ‘low income housing’ for these people cuz 1) they don’t work, they get SSI disability payments of whatever, $1k a month maybe, and whatever you build you still need to be able to charge some nominal but meaningful rent, and 2) these people are not rent payers eh.
For ‘solutions’ you are realistically talking about hundreds of millions of buildings for which their is no financing that is politically possible.
Mac, I will read up on it. Man I didnt think it was possible for me to hate Ted Kennedy (may his soul be burning in the firey pits of hell for all eternity) but if what you say is true (and I have no reason to think its not) I will.
Everything that Long suggests has been tried — and failed — in major cities in California. Los Angeles is rapidly becoming unlivable because of homeless encampments and the spread of disease.
Lefty bureaucrats are operating on a false assumption — that large scale homelessness and the problems it fosters are a social issue caused by economic variables (like housing costs) that can be controlled by the government.
What do you do when the large majority turn down housing vouchers or a spot in a shelter? In LA that is what happens.
It’s hard to believe. You look at a homeless encampment on the news and the newsreader asks “Who would choose to live like this? We need more shelters!” But choosing to live like that is exactly what they they do. Their choice isn’t between squalor and non-squalor, it is between freedom and squalor, and much less freedom and somewhat less squalor.
And are you going to send them all to rehab against their will? And what is the success rate of forced rehab? Ditto being forced into mental health treatment.
But the bureaucrats and activists insist on retrying failed policies, over and over, and the good people abandon the cities and the wicked make room for more of their kin.
I have known mentally ill people who were able to keep a job, pay the rent, etc, as long as someone was holding them accountable. Likewise, I know people who have gone through chem dep treatment that have gone on to live clean lives and have families, jobs, etc.
Like MP, I would like to know success rates of forced rehab. I think former Governor Christine Todd Whitman initiated some sort of program in the 90s to rehab drug users rather than jail them. I don’t know what happened there with that program.
Current SF Mayor London Breed is proposing a program of forced conservatorship on homeless who have mental illness. I wonder what the results would be with that program. Since I do know successes of people who had conservators (as well as people who failed when they didn’t have a conservator), I tend to think this program is worth a try.
I don’t think it is necessarily a problem of throwing money at an issue. The problem comes when money has continuously been thrown at the issue over a long enough period of time to where the results are unfavorable, but no one stops the money flow.
If institutions worked, and are worth returning to, then let’s do it. If Gov Whitman’s program worked in NJ, let’s do more. If Mayor Breed’s conservatorship program works, let’s do more. If none of it works, let’s figure out something else. But, previous commenters are probably right-there isn’t any money in solving the problem.
A hallmark of the bourgeois is to say that aren’t being “managed” properly. They aren’t about solving problems at all — they will say that the problems cannot be solved. What they fear most is an end to the status quo, of the bourgeois using ever more resources to make marginally smaller adjustments to problems that began long before there was any such thing as a bourgeois.
The comments above are sensible but irrelevant.
Liberals took over law schools, then the legal profession, and then the judgeships. Liberal lawyers brought lawsuits before liberal judges arguing that it was unconstitutional for the government to take away a person’s liberty by confining them in a mental institution just because they had a medical condition. See O’Connor v. Donaldson.
Constitutionally, the government can take away your liberty only if (a) you commit a crime or (b) you are a danger to yourself or others. A person camping in the park isn’t a danger to anybody. A homeless mentally ill vagrant picked up for swearing at passers-by will be held for 72 hours for evaluation, during which time he’ll be given a shave, shower, clean clothes and all his meds. By Monday morning when he appears in court with his public defender, there will be no basis for the judge to order continued confinement. So they let him out – give him his freedom – where he can refuse to take his meds, panhandle for money, eat at the soup kitchen and sleep in the bushes because the rules of the homeless shelter are too strict. This cycle continues until he commits a crime and is sent to jail, or he dies on the streets.
The only way to reverse it is to convince the Supreme Court that they made a mistake, that an individual’s liberty is not more important than society’s safety, that we can lock up people on less-than-perfect evidence. That’s also a scary road to travel, because the other end is the Soviet Union, where anybody who disagreed with socialism must be crazy and therefore can be confined indefinitely. Substitute “climate change” for “socialism” and you see the risk.
Dang, I used the S-word in a post and got caught in the moderation filter. Try again:
The comments above are sensible but irrelevant.
Liberals took over law schools, then the legal profession, and then the judgeships. Liberal lawyers brought lawsuits before liberal judges arguing that it was unconstitutional for the government to take away a person’s liberty by confining them in a mental institution just because they had a medical condition. See O’Connor v. Donaldson.
Constitutionally, the government can take away your liberty only if (a) you commit a crime or (b) you are a danger to yourself or others. A person camping in the park isn’t a danger to anybody. A homeless mentally ill vagrant picked up for swearing at passers-by will be held for 72 hours for evaluation, during which time he’ll be given a shave, shower, clean clothes and all his meds. By Monday morning when he appears in court with his public defender, there will be no basis for the judge to order continued confinement. So they let him out – give him his liberty – where he can refuse to take his meds, panhandle for money, eat at the soup kitchen and sleep in the bushes because the rules of the homeless shelter are too strict. This cycle continues until he commits a crime and is sent to jail, or he dies on the streets.
The only way to reverse it is to convince the Supreme Court that they made a mistake, that an individual’s liberty is not more important than society’s safety, that we can lock up people on less-than-perfect evidence. That’s also a scary road to travel, because the other end is a country where anybody who disagreed with The Party must be crazy and therefore could be confined indefinitely. Substitute “climate change” for “The Party” and you see the risk.
PoD: You can read any Kindle book while signed into their website on any device. You don’t need a Kindle.
Uh-huh, and who really gets the SSI cash when someone is living in a tent and eating used pizza?
I mean, someone is cashing it. Ain’t gonna let it go undeposited. Like, c’mon.
Betchya its some empathetic charitable community organized activist advocacy group. Ya think?
^ Oh, I would imagine most bums getting a disability payment get most of the money and spend it on drugs, booze, and smokes for themselves. Their lives are organized around that check.
Be that as it may, point is these aren’t “low income” people who have any chance of participating in their own housing cost with their thousand bucks. You’d have to subsidize, with tax dollars, their entire housing cost. And you don’t even have the liberal / prog / corporate triumvirate that governs cities suggesting that, because it costs too much to be seriously considered.
I dont know where John came from but he seems to have replaced Emery as the sane, left of center voice on this blog.
Be that as it may, point is these aren’t “low income” people who have any chance of participating in their own housing cost with their thousand bucks.
Why do they not only stay in these big cities, why do they move there to begin with?
If you have a thousand bucks a month in disability payments, why do you choose to live in a place where the taxes are high, and housing costs are high? eCan’t be because there are greater career opportunities.
MP – the thing is, these people who are homeless because of chemical dependency or mental illness are not just staying in cities. I grew up in a rural area. We had our proportional share of these people. They would hide out in abandoned farms, near swamp areas, or wooded acres. Sometimes, even vacant properties within the town. Their checks never went for things that any of us would think it ought to go. It went to more illicit drugs, or whimsical spending spree when that mentally ill person was manic. No matter what the taxes are, no matter what the cost of housing is, or the price of goods/services, these people are not thinking the same way the rest of us do who make regular payments, buy groceries, etc. They’re not even thinking the same way as really poor people do who still have a home but maybe make late payments or are drowning in debt.
I’ve been thinking about JD’s comment above. True, I don’t think most of us would want too much power going into locking people up. And all of this is scary to think about it when Joe says it the way he does
But, to me it seems like if someone is sleeping in the elements, or in a rickety old farm building that could collapse with a slight breeze, if one is stumbling into traffic because he is so drunk while begging for money, I would consider those as evidence of “a danger to self.”
Universal basic income would take care of this. It would also help recipients feel as if they were independent, like they’re in charge, like they have something of their own.
Unless they pissed it away on cell phones and potato chips. Then it’s a just stupid waste of money.
https://apnews.com/758f8d90cb664ba5bca303f93e46da3a
If some rich guy wants to give away his own money to people who will waste it, I have no problem with that – it’s his money. But when his personal philanthropy becomes the motivation for Liberals to give away MY money to people who will waste it . . . .
I’ve mentioned this before. My brother spent 5 years living in a tent in the woods in Idaho; during those years, we had no idea where he was. We found him after 2 Mexican nationals, in the country illegally of course, put a Buck knife into his lung 5 times to facilitate their theft of aluminum cans from the back of his truck. It’s a genuine miracle he survived. (The state of Oregon let them out on bail, and we never saw them again. But we did get juicy medical bill from the state.)
Turns out he has paranoid Schizophrenia and early onset Alzheimers. He hears people plotting his demise, outside the window, around the corner, behind those trees, in the other room, 24 hours a day. To him, they are as real as the Sun in the sky. I cannot imagine the suffering he went through.
After mom passed, he came here and lived with us for 4 years, but as his condition worsened (his meds keep him stable, but they kick his ass), he became too much for my wife to care for when I was traveling for work, so we moved him to a nice, nearby nursing home. We cover whatever his SSI doesn’t, and I bring him home almost every weekend. He’s as happy as he can be when he tucks into his weekend rib-eye and enjoys a cold beer (one).
My point is this. My wife and I are not doing anything unique, or even noteworthy; we’re doing what families have always done. If more people took their family responsibilities seriously, we’d have a lot less people living in cardboard boxes. I’m not talking about the drug and alcohol addled bums out there tossing infected needles around for some kid to step on; the best place for them is jail based rehab. But I bet at least 1/2 of the people out there are seriously mentally ill, and I bet most of them have family members around somewhere. I can’t understand how someone could let a family member suffer like that.
Government mental hospitals were always horror shows, and they would be horror shows today. I agree we should have someplace for people who have nowhere else to go; it’s better than living in a cardboard box, or a tent in the woods, I guess. But it should be a last resort.
JD: “The only way to reverse it is to convince the Supreme Court that they made a mistake, that an individual’s liberty is not more important than society’s safety, that we can lock up people on less-than-perfect evidence.”
Yikes…no.
From JD’s link:
“Garza, who is unemployed and previously was addicted to drugs, though she said she has been sober for 18 years following a stint in prison. “I like it because I feel more independent, like I’m in charge. I really have something that’s my own.”
I think we can see the problem, right there. Most wards of the state believe they have a God given right to gibs. The idea they should be grateful is something that would never in a million years occur to them.
Swiftee, at some point, it would be good to see how you persuaded your brother to accept the help. My wife’s older sister is bipolar, and it’s amazing how entrenched she is in her ways. I think it’s partially because she has some resources that persuade her that she can “make it on her own”, but if you’ve got a story you’d be willing to tell, I’d be glad to read it.
Bubba, my brother resisted treatment for several years. He was on meds for awhile before he disappeared, but he didn’t like them because they muddled him and had a couple other nasty side effects I won’t get into here. He’d forget to take them or deliberately not take them, wander off for a couple days then show back up, robbed and beat to hell, usually. He usually didn’t remember where he’d been; we tracked him by bus tickets and hospital wrist bands he’d come back with.
IMO, the near death experience is what changed his life. He was still very mobile at that time; he could still drive, but his wounds really knocked the stuffing out of him; he actually bled out on the way to the hospital. He claims to have had an out of body experience.
The only reason he survived is the hospital was only a block away from where he got stabbed. Took all of a year to recover somewhat, but he never recovered completely.
When we took him home from the hospital, he was pretty subdued and complied with whatever we asked of him. Staying on meds was one of the rules he had to keep to live with my mom, as much for her safety as his well being. At that point, he realized his wandering days were over, he wasn’t able to care for himself and he really wanted the voices to stop; from what he’s said, Schizophrenia is physically exhausting as well as mentally debilitating.
So, I don’t know if our situation is a good case study on how to manage a mentally ill person. You really don’t want to have to wait until a person falls apart. That being said, if your sister in law has someone telling her she can get along without meds and psychiatric treatment, that person has got to go. In my experience these things only continue to get worse until a crisis occurs.
Agree with Swiftee- institutions should be last resort and that family should be responsible. The people I have known in mentally ill situations seem very similar to those of Swiftee’s and bikebubba’s. They don’t like the meds because they don’t like the “muted” sensation. But without the meds, they are a risk to themselves and others. Those that were homeless that I have known got into their situation because the family that could manage them died, they wore out other responsible family, or had irresponsible family who decided to be a conservator in order to take advantage of them. I suspect the majority of those with mental illness who are homeless are all in the same situation.
I have learned that it is very tough to get a court appointed conservator and very difficult to commit someone if you aren’t the conservator.
It’s a tough thing to understand for the general public, which is why so many go along with the idea that UBI or building more housing will solve the problem.
JD, just did some digging on your UBI link. The story takes place in Stockton, CA and I suddenly remembered that Stockton went into Chapter 9 bankruptcy in 2012. Stockton, like most leftist cities, has bought union support over the years with ever more generous pension plans, and when the economy crashed in ’08, they couldn’t keep up with the payments.
The leftists in Cali have protected their union bosses by passing the “California Rule,” which says that union thugs are guaranteed the pension in place the day they were hired. The money has to come from somewhere, so in this case *everyone* got a haircut to keep the union thugs fat and happy.
They emerged from Chap 9 in 2015. Now they’re playing around with giving cash away (although at this point the funds come from donations).
These people are insane.
Thanks, Swiftee; so your position is that while it took bleeding out/a series of mishaps to get your brother’s attention, we might yet lovingly interact with my sister-in-law to get her to a better place? Is that about right?
Right now, I’m just thankful that as far as I can tell, she does take her meds, she hasn’t become homeless, and quite frankly she’s had some good success beating the bottle. For a while, she was washing her meds down with vodka and Coke. That said, it would just be nice to have her really “back”, if you catch my drift.