"Damsel in dis Dress" WROTE: snipe: From what I understand, a large percentage of homeless people are there because of mental illness. Especially with the more severe illnesses, people tend not to want to take their medication, so they become unable to function normally in society. Carol----------------------------------------------- RESPONSE: No, those mentally ill people are in the streets since the President Reagan era when he started to shut down the mental hospitals for budget cuts and insurance will not pay for these med.'s they need claiming it's too expensive. The mentally ill living on the streets are a big problem here even in the suburban areas. 99% of all state mental hospitals have gone under in Michigan as most other states with the excuse that the med.'s of today patients don't need the hospital stay at the state's expense but yet insurance companies including social services refuse to pay for the expensive med.'s. Even the free clinics the last hope for many people here was shut down by our ex state governor. Got to know a few of these street people by names that hanged out in public areas sleeping on benches & the story was same over and over. They were kicked out of the mental hospital when state shut it down their families wanted nothing more or couldn't cope with them and social services will not get involve.
