Well its been awhile now since those heady days of BLM, the George Floyd murder protests the summers of “mostly peaceful protests” and now we are dealing with the fallout and consequences of decisions or really indecision of that time.
I’m not quite ready to drop it all into the laps of the SJW‘s. They, the politicians and the corporations who listened to them had their role to play. It goes back further than that though. Let’s take a journey back to the late 1970s and explore the concept of Deinstitutionalisation. Wikipedia gives it a much better nuance than I will but I’ll try to break it down for anyone not familiar with it.
It was a movement as a part of the, at time, social justice to take down large “institutional” mental hospitals and bring people with mental health problems/concerns/afflictions into the main stream.
There were instances of abuse and scandals surrounding mental institutions but in researching this abuse was not endemic as portrayed at the time through such films as “One flew over the cuckoos nest” as was popularized at the time. But there were serious abuses at specific places like the MK ULTRA research at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal and other places. Also less known is that MK ULTRA experiments also occurred in federal prisons, but they didn’t close those down. The prison reform movement didn’t take on quite the same momentum.
Having said that it also played into various governments hands that wanted to divest themselves of responsibility of running and maintaining various mental hospitals. They were tired of paying for inspectors and the upkeep/costs involved. There was also a shift in public attitudes about having mental health facilities or at least the various groups that lobbied the government to “reform” those systems. Advancements in psychiatric drugs were also a motivation in that people with varying psychiatric conditions could take drugs to mitigate those conditions and in some cases lead productive and non institutionalized lives.
Sounds good and who wouldn’t want to be on board with that?
Problem is in the push to close the institutions most of the patients got put out into the street, no meds, no routines, no medical staff to attend or look after them. It became a police and social services problem having to respond to mental health crises. The “community based care” never materialized in any meaningful way. I recall in the late 80s where I lived reading the paper as a high school sr knowing that the decision to close the local hospital would be bad news.
This in turn lead to a huge increase in drug addictions when people have no supports or coping skills they get into drugs on the street.
But what about the group homes and half way houses? Well those are almost all privatized. In the elan of Reaganomics and Thatcherism of the 80’s and into the 90’s the idea that private industry could solve all the problems of government spending and budgets. Turns out that was all bullshit. Private services cost a lot more than government not for profit models. Human misery has turned into a very lucrative and corrupt industry. It didn’t start that way but when you get free tax dollars and next to no accountability it’s free money for insiders and jack shit for people in mental distress.
Another point in group homes is that they are mostly run for profit. That means keeping costs down. That usually falls on the backs of employees having low wages and quality of care for residents. Oversight of many of these homes falls under the domain of various not for profits and arms length from governments. Not enough funding, not enough employees and too many patients/clients.
I do have a unique view into this world as I have had family and friends that worked in mental health including myself working with clients with mental health and mental disabilities. It is a field dominated by woman who are usually way under paid for the work they do and the risks they take especially with higher risk residents who may have psychotic conditions. Many staff I have known over the years have been attacked and injured by residents having mental episodes and sometimes with no back up as they are too short staffed.
This is an issue that we as a society need to take a balanced, evidence based and NOT political or current SJW view of and get it sorted out. The tricky part is it will need to be a multi layered approach involving approaches like the Alameda model for self directed or emergency care. Institution care for potentially dangerous conditions such as abusive psychopathic behaviours and court ordered observation and perhaps group homes more so for long term care situations like senility and decreased mental acuity. That’s not as catchy as some kind of one size fits all easy solution but it’s mental health, individual needs and usually messy and not everyone fits into a nice little box or category. Homelessness is a huge if not the largest part of the mental health crisis.
I find it especially disgusting when corporations wear the #letstalk or #mentalhealthmatters labels yet treat their employees like crap or cut off the benefits for those who actually require mental health services. Not that different when they try to wear the labels of whatever the latest social movement or concern is. Shut the fuck up and sell cereal or whatever. Don’t pretend to give a shit about social causes. A lot of those companies wearing BLM labels or Pride Flags have no problem working to death african workers or having slave like conditions in south east asia or china.
Our society and body politic at the moment is a toxic waste dump with the so called culture wars being fomented by billionaires, corporations and political zealots of all stripes. Sadly until that gets settled it’ll be awhile before mental health gets taken seriously on a national level.
For what it’s worth there are mental health supports out there and something is better than nothing. There are good people who are trying to do the right thing.
Good luck! EvS.