The Tragedy of the Homeless Mentally Ill in America

The number of homeless people shifted to the streets and woods in our towns and cities is one of the most disgraceful, horrors of America.

An estimated 750,000 people who are homeless, almost 50% of them have a serious mental illness. These unfortunate mentally ill people go untreated, and unable to work, living on the streets making a meager dollar panhandling, collecting cans and eating out of garbage cans.

The number of homeless Americans, since homelessness is often a transient state and some are in shelters.  An estimation from studies show approximately 3 million people, some of them children, are likely to experience  homelessness in a year; approximately 1% of American citizens experiencing homelessness each year.

Homeless people suffer from high rates of mental health problems made worse by living on the streets and in shelters. 

A great number of homeless persons suffer from mental disorders; which include Anxiety Disorders, Bipolar disorder, Depression, and Schizophrenia. Schizoaffective disorders and severe personality disorders are other illnesses that can be included. There are more people with untreated severe psychiatric illnesses living on America’s streets than are receiving care in hospitals. Substance abuse is also prevalent among the homeless populations.

 Deinstitulization from mental institutions to outpatient care failed; the transition of the mentally ill to outpatient care never materialized in the 1960′s and 1970′s the desire to deinstitutionalize many of those being held in state and other mental institutions began. The plan was to create community health centers where the mentally ill could receive outpatient treatment, along with residential facilities for those unable to make it on their own.

Boarding homes filled with discharged psychiatric patients from the nearby hospitals, the intended policy of deinstitutionalization exchanged one institute for another.  Single-room occupancy hotels and other low cost housing were declining in urban areas as redevelopment came into being.

By the 1980s the consequences of deinstitutionalization were becoming obvious. More and more severely ill people were living on the streets and in public shelters.

Living on the streets and in shelters is can be a trigger for a mental illness. The heart of the plight of the mentally ill homeless are those whose mental state makes them unable to hold jobs; and for the ones that the residential facilities and community health centers has been unsuccessful for.

Without an a national effort to eliminate homelessness, the problem will only get worse, particularly in these  economic times. The helpless and hopeless mentally ill homeless have no place to go, no way to provide for themselves and have little hope in the present situation.