[fjsolwmv]

How do you know people don't become mentally ill or homeless after losing their home and their life spiralling out of control? Or perhaps that if you have a support structure you can manage mental illness?

If you don't have money or friends, what group housing would you find?

Why would you move to a different city, away from everyone you know, if you don't have a job to pay bills?

[geezerjay]

> How do you know people don't become mentally ill or homeless after losing their home

Because a substantial portion already have a history of mental problems before they became homeless, and typically they find themselves homeless because they reach adulthood and thus their primary caretaker either can't or won't be able to keep them off the streets. I personally know a couple of homeless individials that suffered from schizophrenia who found thenselves on the streets after their patents passed away.

[benatkin]

People could also just call all homeless people mentally ill. I mean, they didn't pick themselves up by their bootstraps, right?

I think it's a cop-out to call most of the non-drug-addicted ones mentally ill, as a way of lumping them in with the drug addicts.