Part 2 – Different Views on The Homeless and Mental Illness

This is the second part of this series. For the first part, click here.

There are several organizations and people who are writing about homeless people with mental illness and how this issue can be resolved or even prevented in the United States.

Nancy Vogel

Nancy Vogel is an independent Mental Health Care Professional. Nancy Vogel has produced Housing the Mentally Ill and Chronically Homeless: An Effective Solution, But Counties Need Greater Flexibility, in which Vogel writes that one-third of the homeless population suffers from a mental illness. Because so many homeless people are diagnosed with a mental illness of some sort, there needs to be a solid solution that could effectively solve this issue that affects so many individuals. Nancy Vogel and others agree that a permanent supportive housing is one of the main solutions in solving the mental health crises among the homeless people living in the United States.

The National Coalition for the Homeless

The National Coalition for the Homeless  is a network of people who are experiencing or have experienced homelessness in the past that work together in helping those who are homeless. The article, “Mental Illness and Homelessness” was published on the National coalition for the Homeless, which talks about the comparison between mental illness in the overall United States and just the Homeless population of the United States.

The authors of “Mental Illness and Homelessness,” state that a critical case of mental illness can affect the patient’s ability to carry out important functions of their daily lives. The article further goes on in writings about how providing a better mental health care and facilities would not only reduce mental health, but overall homelessness as well in the United States.

The article, “Mental Illness and Homelessness,”, disagrees with the article published on the Denver Post, “For Homeless with Mental Illness, Housing is Health Care,” simply because The National Coalition for the Homeless believes that even if the mentally ill are given housing, they might continue to be unstable residential and go back out on the streets.

Denver Post

A Denver Post published in November 2014, “For Homeless with Mental Illnesses, Housing if Health Care,” puts it that a stable home is all the treatment that a homeless person suffering from a mental illness needs.

 Russell Schutt and Gerald Garrett

Russell Schutt and Gerald Garrett also share similar ideas as Nancy Vogel. In Responding to The Homeless the authors, Russell Schutt and Gerald Garrett, write that when people are forced to live out on streets, their chances of suffering from a serious and chronic mental illness increases from 25% to 50%. Even though most of the homeless population in the United States suffers from a mental illness, only 1 in 3 homeless suffering from a mental illness actually get hospitalized for psychiatric problems, which may be short-term hospitalization or long term.

As I talked about how difficult it is for the homeless people to find a clinic that is available and does not have a waitlist, it can be rather difficult and even impossible for a homeless person to be able to get the right and proper treatment for their illness.

For part three of this series, click here.

Works Cited

“For Homeless with Mental Illnesses, Housing is Health Care.” Denver PostNov 25 2014. ProQuest. Web. 12 May 2016.

Holland, Gale. “California Legislators Propose Spending $2 Billion to Build Housing for Homeless.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 4 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 May 2016.

Schutt, Russell K., and Gerald R. Garrett. Responding to the Homeless: Policy and Practice. New York: Plenum, 1992. Print.

Vogel, Nancy. Housing the Mentally Ill and Chronically Homeless: An Effective Solution, but Counties Need Greater Flexibility. Sacramento, CA: Senate Publications & Flags, 2011. Print.

Wright, James D. Address Unknown: The Homeless in America. New York: A. De Gruyter, 1989. Print.