Psychiatric News February 5, 2010
Volume 45 Number 3 Page 7
© American Psychiatric Association
* Community News
How Many Americans Have a Mental Illness, but No Home?
How many Americans are both mentally ill and homeless?
There appears to be no clear answer to this question. But some statistics, as well as estimates from experts on the subject, provide some perspective on it.
For example, the U.S. Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey, published in December 2008, included information on homelessness and mental illness in 23 cities between October 2007 and September 2008. On an average night during this time span, and in the 23 cities combined, some 28,000 people were sleeping in emergency shelters or on the streets, and about a quarter of them had a serious mental illness.
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless fact sheet published in June 2008, 16 percent of the single adult homeless population has a severe and persistent mental illness.
“Depending on where you read, between a third and two-thirds of homeless people are mentally ill and/or use drugs or alcohol,” Van Yu, M.D., who heads up the Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless in New York City, told Psychiatric News. “And a significant percentage have both. So a conservative estimate is that 15,000 of the 38,000 homeless people in New York City are mentally ill and/or use drugs or alcohol.”
“Most estimates put the number of homeless people in the United States around 3.5 million a year,” Sam Tsemberis, Ph.D., founder of Pathways to Housing for the homeless mentally ill population, said in an interview. “The question then is, How many of these homeless 3.5 million people are severely mentally ill? Depending on how you define mental illness—the criteria you are using—the estimates range between 20 percent and 40 percent. So between 20 percent and 40 percent of the estimated 3.5 million homeless are mentally ill. In other words, anywhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million Americans are both mentally ill and without a home.” Graphic
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
THE LEFT BEHIND - The Ignored Unemployed Suicide Rate
A ramp up in audacity seems imperative by the Democratic Party if they intend to win in 2010 and 2012. They are facing some amorphous, menacing creature in the Republican Party that seems to explode with new and evil appendages daily. It’s a creature that feeds on the fear of the weak and the paranoia of the ignorant. And yet the narcoleptic blue team seems content and oblivious to the threat, peaceful in their complacency. So I have to wonder WTF are they doing?
Frustrated by the lack of a voice the major media could hear, I created this petition on change.org. (See link on the right column) And while the impact has been minimal, I think the message is beyond sobering. Tragic is really the word that comes to mind.
These self-absorbed lunatics (The Republicans) seem to believe they are not responsible for the results of their heartless and gutless actions. Their insistence on ignoring the plight of the long-term unemployed has directly resulted in a steadily growing suicide rate amongst those who have finally lost all hope. I expect this number to grow exponentially over the coming months as millions of more members of the "once working class" realize they are ultimately those people who are "in the wrong country at the wrong time".
This whole deal is totally unacceptable. I believe it represents an attempt by the Republicans to eradicate an entire section of the American population. Hey, got to get those numbers to jive somehow, so why not "lean the herd" of all the stragglers, gimps and runts. And so families are brought to ruin, former hard-working Americans are broken and left to bleed out, while the "new elite" continue on as if it is business as usual.
Maybe the news of another unemployment-related suicide makes page 13
of some local rag and the death of another American, directly tied to the Republican’s choice to put politics above people, goes unnoticed, barely as bothersome as a pebble in their Gucci loafer.
And still the Democrats sleep. Shame on them all!
Frustrated by the lack of a voice the major media could hear, I created this petition on change.org. (See link on the right column) And while the impact has been minimal, I think the message is beyond sobering. Tragic is really the word that comes to mind.
These self-absorbed lunatics (The Republicans) seem to believe they are not responsible for the results of their heartless and gutless actions. Their insistence on ignoring the plight of the long-term unemployed has directly resulted in a steadily growing suicide rate amongst those who have finally lost all hope. I expect this number to grow exponentially over the coming months as millions of more members of the "once working class" realize they are ultimately those people who are "in the wrong country at the wrong time".
This whole deal is totally unacceptable. I believe it represents an attempt by the Republicans to eradicate an entire section of the American population. Hey, got to get those numbers to jive somehow, so why not "lean the herd" of all the stragglers, gimps and runts. And so families are brought to ruin, former hard-working Americans are broken and left to bleed out, while the "new elite" continue on as if it is business as usual.
Maybe the news of another unemployment-related suicide makes page 13
of some local rag and the death of another American, directly tied to the Republican’s choice to put politics above people, goes unnoticed, barely as bothersome as a pebble in their Gucci loafer.
And still the Democrats sleep. Shame on them all!
AMERICAN MELTDOWN: Palin & Beck Leading the Lemmings
Two unabashed self-promoters polishing their rhetoric for the big event: leading their pack of lemmings to the edge of the abyss. What an aberration spewing this vitriolic diatribe to honor a man so full of compassion and love; a true minister who believed that God would give his oppressed followers the strength to carry on against violence and hatred. A peaceful visionary who believed that all should be equal in America and that by facing this injustice, without hate or violence in their hearts, they could defeat it.
Now does this sound anything like the hate-filled bile that spews out of Beck's mouth every week on television? Does this sound like the agenda of the elitist, exclusionary Tea Party Conservatives? This whole gathering is an insult of the highest order to MLK and "his dream" of America providing hope and opportunity for EVERYONE, regardless of race, color or creed.
Beck, Palin, Limbaugh and all the rest of the rabid lemmings who follow these self-proclaimed "visionaries" believe in a policy that excludes the very people Martin Luther King embraced: the homeless, the long-termed unemployed, the poor, the sick, the elderly and the oppressed.
These are the same groups Jesus would have embraced. Perhaps the ultimate blasphemy is continually invoking the sacred names of God and Jesus in his evil, exclusionary clap-trap. (It seems likely that if Jesus showed up at the rally, he would take the microphone, chastise these people for accepting this hate-filled man as a messenger from God and tell them to all go home and break open their Bibles.)
It is likely, and sadly ironic, that the only person involved in the triumph and tragedy of Martin Luther King's legacy who would have been a Beck/Palin supporter is the man who assassinated him.
God grant us the strength to discern the good from the bad, the lies from the truth and self-proclaimed demigods from God Himself. Amen.
Now does this sound anything like the hate-filled bile that spews out of Beck's mouth every week on television? Does this sound like the agenda of the elitist, exclusionary Tea Party Conservatives? This whole gathering is an insult of the highest order to MLK and "his dream" of America providing hope and opportunity for EVERYONE, regardless of race, color or creed.
Beck, Palin, Limbaugh and all the rest of the rabid lemmings who follow these self-proclaimed "visionaries" believe in a policy that excludes the very people Martin Luther King embraced: the homeless, the long-termed unemployed, the poor, the sick, the elderly and the oppressed.
These are the same groups Jesus would have embraced. Perhaps the ultimate blasphemy is continually invoking the sacred names of God and Jesus in his evil, exclusionary clap-trap. (It seems likely that if Jesus showed up at the rally, he would take the microphone, chastise these people for accepting this hate-filled man as a messenger from God and tell them to all go home and break open their Bibles.)
It is likely, and sadly ironic, that the only person involved in the triumph and tragedy of Martin Luther King's legacy who would have been a Beck/Palin supporter is the man who assassinated him.
God grant us the strength to discern the good from the bad, the lies from the truth and self-proclaimed demigods from God Himself. Amen.
Friday, August 27, 2010
AMERICAN MELTDOWN: Beck Goes to Washington
At the 1927 Nuremberg Germany
It seems Beck's rally would have been more appropriately held to commemorate this historic speech. Any connection Beck seeks with MLK is flat on the floor contemptuous. To compare the integrity of King's message with the vitriolic, pseudo-intellectual clap-trap that this huckster belches out is preposterous. He is proving nothing other than he may well be the lead lemming, moving ahead of the other bile-spewing rodents like Limbaugh, Palin, et al.....
He is indeed the king of clowns, creating policy out of absurdity. I guess the real question is, how ignorant (and potentially violent) are his followers? Looking at them always brings the word "cretin" to mind. But as the Buffalo Springfield said, "Paranoia tracks deep" and there in lies the rub.
I just saw an ad on the Internet for someone selling "Palin-Beck" bumper stickers. Perhaps it’s just a 99er trying to make a buck or maybe it’s actually someone body-surfing this wave of noxious nonsense who actually believes in replacing a political platform with a political faith. Hmmm, sounds familiar.
Hey, it worked for the ultimate opportunist: Adolph Hitler. Just takes one megalomaniac with a way to reach the disenfranchised. (If he grows a little mustache, I say we shoot him.)
It seems Beck's rally would have been more appropriately held to commemorate this historic speech. Any connection Beck seeks with MLK is flat on the floor contemptuous. To compare the integrity of King's message with the vitriolic, pseudo-intellectual clap-trap that this huckster belches out is preposterous. He is proving nothing other than he may well be the lead lemming, moving ahead of the other bile-spewing rodents like Limbaugh, Palin, et al.....
He is indeed the king of clowns, creating policy out of absurdity. I guess the real question is, how ignorant (and potentially violent) are his followers? Looking at them always brings the word "cretin" to mind. But as the Buffalo Springfield said, "Paranoia tracks deep" and there in lies the rub.
I just saw an ad on the Internet for someone selling "Palin-Beck" bumper stickers. Perhaps it’s just a 99er trying to make a buck or maybe it’s actually someone body-surfing this wave of noxious nonsense who actually believes in replacing a political platform with a political faith. Hmmm, sounds familiar.
Hey, it worked for the ultimate opportunist: Adolph Hitler. Just takes one megalomaniac with a way to reach the disenfranchised. (If he grows a little mustache, I say we shoot him.)
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