[ExI] Basic Income - Basic Housing?

[Kelly Anderson]

On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 10:35 AM, William Flynn Wallace
<foozler83 at gmail.com>wrote:

> I don't know either but I do know this:  alcoholics and drug addicts and
> the mentally retarded and psychotic should not be homeless unless they
> simply will not stay put in some kind of housing.  I have worked in mental
> institutions from the lowest level aide to professional psychologist
> (including Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa that filed the law suit that
> changed a lot of things in 1973) and think that after minorities such as
> blacks, women, animals, and children have all had many advocates and
> organization devoted to them, maybe we can have a civil rights movement for
> the above fathers, mothers, children, brothers and sisters of our citizens.
>
> I think we should be judged in part by how we treat the lowest and most
> helpless of us.
>

Bill,

  When the courts prevent people from being incarcerated against their will
when seriously mentally ill, it is a great victory for the personal freedom
of the individual who is mentally ill. But with freedom comes
responsibility. If the person is dangerous to others, and demonstrates that
through aggressive behavior, they can be put away in a place where they
won't hurt others. Also, they can then freeze to death, starve if they
don't seek help, or get into all sorts of other trouble they might have
avoided while in the care of the state or a private organization that cares
for these sorts of people.

  So my liberty loving side says, let them go free unless they hurt
someone. My compassionate side, however, (and I do have one) feels sorry
for them because I believe that they might get better treatment in a
facility that would help them manage medications, get them clean, help them
have clean clothes and healthy food.

  So it's a serious conflict between caring for people (which I support,
ESPECIALLY when it is a private organization caring for the people rather
than the government) and letting people have the maximum freedom they can
possibly enjoy.

  In the end, I agree with you. We should be judged by how we treat these
people. But providing care to those who want it and forcing care on someone
who just wants to be left alone are two very different things. It does get
complicated when the person suffers from a paranoia. If I were homeless,
for example, I might not want ANY kind of government help. It would be too
easy for me to slip into that kind of paranoia. I'd probably walk to some
place warm and just do my best on my own. I'm not terribly mentally ill. ;-)

-Kelly
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