Unlike some here, I came away with a deep sense of empathy, and today’s HN snark and frustration bounced off me pretty hard. The public order issues - homelessness in parks, the challenges of shared spaces—have certainly impacted me. But more than that, I struggle with how to translate the state of the world to my boys. I always remind them: every unhoused person was once a little boy or girl. We might be older now, but we’re still kids inside, and nobody dreams of growing up in these circumstances.
What struck me most was the balance of compassion and pragmatism that Amanda brings to her work. It’s easy to be frustrated with the policies and bureaucratic inefficiencies that slow down real solutions - but they are, in some ways, understandable.
The biggest frustration for me is the gap between the mental state of many unhoused individuals and the requirements needed to secure housing. The city surely understands the long-term costs of its policies, and it’s run by highly pragmatic people with limited budgets. But rules are rules, and at some point, top-down accommodations (including medical interventions...) are necessary to bridge this gap.
Nothing about this article strikes me as pragmatic. She's spending all her energy attempting to help people with the least likelihood of success and then gets angry at the system when they inevitably fail. The city didn't kick Morrisette out of the hotel because they like zero-tolerance policies, but because other people deserve a chance a chance to live in a free hotel room as well.
There are those that do succeed but those are certainly the most motivated to do so. Others are in transition: know they should get indoors but know their difficulties.
Rather than kicking them out, maybe they are required to attend some mandatory psych sessions. Maybe they go maybe they don’t but at least there support to help them work thru their issues of why they blew up at the staff (as in this instance).
According to the social workers I know who work with this population, there is a persistent fear that any form of offered mental health help is a trap for institutionalizing people.
By and large, people who are chronically homeless due to mental health issues will prefer to remain homeless over being required to see a psychiatrist and having to take medicine, or so I'm told.
Even if you disregard history, the current POTUS literally talked about concentrating homeless populations into centralized camps away from the general population.
How realistic this fear is and how probable it is, is of course debatable. But given that these people probably didn't have any positive experiences with mental healthcare and institutions and that the public discourse often describes them as analogous to vermin or disease and focuses on "removing them" rather than helping them, trusting a psychiatrist - especially if it means having to go to them, especially into a clinical environment - let alone taking psychopharmaceuticals seems like it would require quite the leap of faith.
Every state does have some form of civil / involuntary commitment, though nothing like before the 80's.
Many drugs also come with unpleasant side effects, especially if someone steals them from you and you're stuck with withdrawals. I'm reminded of one person my friend was helping who hated taking his medicine, but if he didn't, he would inevitably become increasingly paranoid that vampires were out to get him. Helping the poor guy live anything close to a "normal" life was a constant challenge.