The difference is very striking compared with Boston (a city with similar climate to Oslo) where there are many obviously mentally ill people wandering around talking nonsense, begging for money, carrying their things in plastic bags, and sleeping on the ground.
The way - the only way - my homelessness ended is I had help.
I live in one of the southern US states that tends to be hostile towards people in need. My kids and I had on-and-off hunger 2008-2018.
I don't understand what I said somehow excludes helping in other ways.
My views are probably a bit more radical, in that I think that everyone should have free food. Homeless, homeful, working, unemployed, citizen, foreigner. Everyone. No exceptions. And, we already have a basis to maintain this system - SNAP.
So when I talked about how to help those whom are experiencing homelessness combined with debilitating mental illnesses, I'm talking of making that program... Not by destroying other programs.
Can't tell if I'll offer that idea again, once I think about it.
In the Bay Area there are plenty of ways to get fed. Happy to be shown I'm wrong, but I don't think it's common to be lacking for food.
For folks who need meds, getting them to stay on them can be hugely difficult. It's even harder when that person lacks shelter and support.
It's not about getting someone healthy, it's about getting them to a point that they are of sound enough mind that they can make rational decisions.
If you hear voices that tell you that antipsychotic medication is going to kill you, you won't take it. The idea that you're choosing to not take medication of your free will is wrong - your free will is compromised by a mental illness so severe that your perception of reality isn't even correct. How can you possibly decide what's best for yourself if you can't accurately understand the world around you?
The point of this kind of forced treatment is to get people into a state where their brain isn't lying to them and they have a basic understanding of what's happening, so that they can then make decisions.
The folks who say it's unethical to force this kind of treatment sound like they're sticking up for folks with severe mental illness, but they're really just condemning them to suffer from that mental illness for life, because without some kind of outside help they simply can't take the actions needed to stop suffering from it, because it prevents them from doing so.
Mostly, yes. Having been homeless myself for an extended period, I saw just how much mental illnesses impact so many people experiencing homelessness.
In my completely unscientific lodgings with them, I'd say its probably around 30% of the people have some sort of debilitating mental illness. I had other reasons for homelessness (lost job, eviction) which are much more mechanical and easier to fix.
I've talked with my SO about the mentally ill on the streets, and the only plan that seems to might work is to forcefully treat them, get them mentally sound, explain their whole situation, and have them choose. It would be in writing, and sealed with a palmscan. And I get that forcefully treating them once may be considered abhorrent, but they are not able in their state of mind to make decisions for themselves.
Once they're of sound mind, they should then have complete agency to choose to remain on the streets, or to obtain emergency services to get out of homelessness.