[ihsw2]

Mental illness is a huge issue. Previously, many homeless lived in mental hospitals but such institutions have been universally abandoned.

While only tangentially related to rising cost of living, it deserves as much merit as a solution as low-income housing, steeper property taxes, and steeper progressive taxation.

[TrinaryWorksToo]

If you want to see mental illness improve in San Francisco, attend the San Francisco Mental Health Board meetings. If you can't be physically present, you can also call in. The website is: http://www.mhbsf.org/

You can call 415-255-3474 on Wednesday, November 15, 2017 before 6:30PM (and every month afterwards) and ask to be put on the conference call. Put it on your calendar. You can start by just listening in and hearing what people say. Everyone who calls in has a legal ability to comment on what's been said, after the board has spoken. You might have an idea no one else has heard.

I serve on a different mental health board. I can answer some questions if you have them.

[virmundi]

Thank you for posting a way for members of HN to actually contribute to their community. It’s better to have an actionable item then to have opinions float about.

[TrinaryWorksToo]

Don't just thank me, engage with your local mental health board. Also, thank you for reading my post.

[tyingq]

Thanks for this...it's so underreported. People imagine that there's some support system for mental illness. There just isn't, at all.

There are 37,679 state run psychiatric beds in the US now. There were 560,000 in 1955. http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stat...

I had a personal experience with someone that made a serious attempt at suicide. Checked into the ER, released to the street 24 hours later with no options offered at all.

[vwcx]

One reason for the decrease in state-run psychiatric beds was the rampant abuse most facilities hosted. As this was addressed, a replacement was not introduced.

[tyingq]

I have my doubts as to whether that was the real driver or just the scapegoat. The real driver was probably the direct costs. Abuse existed, but the alternative is all of these people living on the street.

There's a pretty good timeline here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/timeline-mental-...

[DanBC]

Isn't a better alternative to give people free access to early intervention (especially early intervention in psychosis services) and free access to treatment in the home?

[tyingq]

I don't know the larger picture, but from my personal experience that would mean lots of adult schizophrenics (or similar) living with their parents. The sad fact is that there are just a lot of people that can't manage on their own. In today's system they are all homeless or in jail.

[TrinaryWorksToo]

The replacement was the Mental Health Services Act, which gives more resources to local governments. Mental Health Boards play a part in figuring out what to do, even if it's only an advisory board.