Highlights From The Comments On Mentally Ill Homeless People
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Follows up on
↳ Details That You Should Include In Your Article On How We Should Do Something About Mentally Ill Homeless People — Essay · Jul 2024
Summary
Highlights-from-the-comments companion to Scott's post demanding that 'be tough / involuntary treatment' advocates specify an actual plan. He rebuts five broad objection-categories -- the 'you said it's unsolvable' strawman; the 'build big institutions' crowd (why would the legal system commit people to new institutions when it won't jail them now?); the 'other countries/the-past solved it' crowd (the California-high-speed-rail boondoggle parallel: yes it's possible, but not via ground-level policy in a dysfunctional state); the 'BE TOUGH = magic' crowd (most tough plans smuggle in state-capacity that would solve the problem without the toughness -- the lead-pipe-climate-change parody); and the 'I shouldn't need a plan' crowd. Then engages specifics with real numbers: the ~$300K/bed institutionalization cost calc (~$1B/yr for SF's worst 25%, surprisingly affordable), the breakdown of who actually filled the old 600K asylum beds (demented elderly, neurosyphilis, Down's, warehoused eccentrics -- mostly emptied by penicillin/antipsychotics/nursing-homes, not just civil-rights), the 25/25/25/25 shelter-demand split, and curated expert testimony (public defenders on commitment hearings, a Canadian psychiatrist on long-acting injectables, Norwegian/Australian/German sheltered-work systems). Lands on three concrete plan-categories he'd actually debate.
Why this score
Quality 71 · Strong. Strong/Solid edge -- top of the Highlights-companion cohort. Substantive: the cost calculations, the historical-deinstitutionalization breakdown, the 'BE TOUGH is a vibe not a plan' framing, and the curated expert knowledge advance the argument well beyond a digest. Capped as a Highlights response.
Claude’s paradigm shift 44 · Moderate. Moderate, low. The fresh contributions are the vibe-not-a-plan framing, the cost calc, and the three-plan taxonomy; mostly synthesis and curation.
Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Minor. Within the homelessness-policy discourse; no material reach of its own. 2.