On February 4, 2021, Janet Hays, Director of her organization Healing Minds NOLA, held a webinar called “Paul Webster on Homelessness and Ending Street Suffering.” Paul Webster, MPP is the former HUD Senior Policy Advisor. Today he was launching his organization “Hope Street Coalition.” Guest speakers were Elinore McCance-Katz, MD, Ph.D. – 1st HHS Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use – and Drew Pinsky, MD – Practicing Physician/ Media Host.
Money is not the problem. Federal funding for homelessness assistance has increased by 240% over the past ten years. But homelessness itself has also increased as well during that time. Giving a homeless person a room is not the answer to the problem as experience has shown. Some religious organizations we are told are happy just to give the homeless person a sandwich and send him on his way. Much of the problem is due to serious mental illness (SMI) and chronic drug addiction.
Homelessness is getting bad. What is the problem if not money – and apparently there is plenty of that available? Currently, the law forbids treatment unless the person asks for it, and that does not happen. I wrote about this before, and I will repeat it here: According to psychiatrists such as Drew Pinsky, the mentally ill are seen as hostile and undesirable because their illnesses are left untreated – by Law as the person cannot be given treatment against his will – and left to worsen until they finally kill someone and become an enemy of the State. The public then demands that the Law – not doctors – address the issue by throwing them into prison. This is useless. The only thing that happens is that the mentally ill end up with a prison record with all that entails and with no medical treatment of value. If this is not THE problem, it is certainly A problem that needs to be addressed.
According to Drew Pinsky, there are 65,000 people who are deteriorating and dying on the streets of Los Angeles. The Federal government sets a funding cap for only 16 beds. This tells me that these people are of no value to society. What if it were your brother? Or your father?
So, today Paul Webster launched his organization “Hope Street Coalition” to address homelessness. He has some good ideas. The website is www.hopestreetcoalition.org.
A recording of today’s event (and other previous events on related topics) is available at Video Archives - Healing Minds NOLA
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David Geiger is a retired licensed and awarded electrical engineer who spent 7 years in psychiatric hospitals and over 40 years since 1979 in the courts as a result of his schizophrenia.