Article: My Brother, The Homeless Person
The Toronto Start had an article yesterday written by Glen Grunwald, the former long-time General Manager of the Toronto Raptors. It's entitled "My Brother, the Homeless Person." I've heard a lot about homelessness from the perspective of social workers and nurses like Richard, Abe and Dan, but I haven't heard much from the perspective of the relatives of homeless people. Grunwald provides a glimpse into his experience with his brother and how he tries to help.
He has one line that says "...I have sadly concluded that homelessness and mental illness are inextricably linked." There is a strong statistical correlation (if I remember correctly) but I remember some of the first things that Abe mentioned to me about this issue. Abe was saying that the crazy homeless person is the stereotype but that there are numerous other reasons that people are homeless. He gave examples of a successful businessman that was on the street for six months and things like that.
I'm not offering a conclusion on this, just a link to the article. To be honest, I'm a little cautious about posting this because I half expect someone to throw in a couple of comments cursing the church or the average Canadian for various reasons. We'll see how the responses go, I guess.
4 comments:
I'll be the first to comment then.
We wonder why the general public is so slow to respond to assisting people less fortunate, giving to charities, and generally caring?
Lets compare our country to the United States. Charitable donations per capita are astronomical there. Why is that? Its because, compared to Canadians, Americans are not being taxed through the roof.
Since having higher taxes hasn't really helped the poor out, money just gets wasted, why don't we lower our taxes and then let individuals decide where their money goes?
I guarantee that things will improve.
I think it's amazing that he's helping out his brother like that. I mean sending money and what not. But he's right, something has to be done to make it easier for homeless people to get off the street. I don't really know exactly what yet, but the rich who rule society basically, don't want to see them, so they are marginalized and the general public doesn't really hear too much about them. It's sad.
From a nurses' perspective (ahem), I was glad to see the way that the article explained how mentally ill people think and react to the world. It makes you wonder if our society is really equipped to deal with people with serious mental problems that are unable to cope in real life.
We recently had vagrant traveller stay at the hospital for awhile after being kicked off the Greyhound bus. He had serious mental issues & trust was a big issue for him as he wouldn't let us see or treat his frostbitten feet.
I think we could be doing more for mental health patients, but it's hard to help when people don't seem to want to be cared for anymore.
Cheers,
I'm not sure where you thought the backlash would come from, but I do agree that mental illness is inextricably linked to homelessness, not in that all homeless people are mentally ill, or that all mentally ill people are homeless, but large numbers of both are true. And, it's been said that after a certain period of time (I can't remember the exact number) all people who are homeless become mentally ill (mostly in the form of a 'personality disorder'). This is a good look at the frustrations with our current impotence in dealing with mental illness. For another more powerful (and more graphic) view from a family member, watch the movie "Tarnation".
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