Comment from the obligatory activist-type woman: it makes me furious and appalled that we created that permanent underclass. It enrages me that we closed all the mental health facilities instead of overhauling the entire mental health system. It makes me sick that so many people, for whatever reason, do not have a secure place to sleep, access to healthy food, or other basic amenities of life.
I vote for every candidate that says they're going to help the "underdog." Rarely am I satisfied with their efforts, but some of them really DO try. I vote for every millage request for the schools, for the fire department, for policing, but rarely do these things pass in my rural red part of the state. I lobby everyone I know for these things, but rarely find a receptive audience. Must be I'm boring them?
I want it on my headstone: "She Tried." Is that better than ignoring the problem, or worse, trying to do away with it? Even if my efforts only benefit a very few lives? I don't know. But I'm still trying.
In the end it's what you can live with. Bill Burr's take is semi-on....when I was in New York they were cracking down on places like Willowbrook where they were systematically abusing the mental patients. But is it any more humane to have them wandering the streets?
Exactly. It should have been overhauled, not completely obliterated. I can't even remember how they decided that tossing 'em all on the streets and into smaller, residential facilities for further abuses or neglect was the best plan. My Aunt was one of those that would have benefited from a larger facility - every time she went off her meds, she was having convos w/the Virgin Mary again & threatening anyone near her with sporks and plastic knives - those damn things can be SHARP. And, somehow, she *always* went off her meds in a residential home.
Comment from the obligatory activist-type woman: it makes me furious and appalled that we created that permanent underclass. It enrages me that we closed all the mental health facilities instead of overhauling the entire mental health system. It makes me sick that so many people, for whatever reason, do not have a secure place to sleep, access to healthy food, or other basic amenities of life.
I vote for every candidate that says they're going to help the "underdog." Rarely am I satisfied with their efforts, but some of them really DO try. I vote for every millage request for the schools, for the fire department, for policing, but rarely do these things pass in my rural red part of the state. I lobby everyone I know for these things, but rarely find a receptive audience. Must be I'm boring them?
I want it on my headstone: "She Tried." Is that better than ignoring the problem, or worse, trying to do away with it? Even if my efforts only benefit a very few lives? I don't know. But I'm still trying.
In the end it's what you can live with. Bill Burr's take is semi-on....when I was in New York they were cracking down on places like Willowbrook where they were systematically abusing the mental patients. But is it any more humane to have them wandering the streets?
Exactly. It should have been overhauled, not completely obliterated. I can't even remember how they decided that tossing 'em all on the streets and into smaller, residential facilities for further abuses or neglect was the best plan. My Aunt was one of those that would have benefited from a larger facility - every time she went off her meds, she was having convos w/the Virgin Mary again & threatening anyone near her with sporks and plastic knives - those damn things can be SHARP. And, somehow, she *always* went off her meds in a residential home.