Seriously though I blame a lot on it on the reduction in mental health care in the 90s...

some of these people (not all, I know) really should be receiving full time mental health care.

When I say some - my limited knowledge of this is restricted to the only person I know in the homeless circuit in Norwich. Old school friend, was about average to above average intelligence at school, gifted musically, from a very comfortable middle class family (although separated). I remember my mother being very confused as to what to do with a vegetarian when would stay for dinner at our place. All would have suggested a comfortable future for him, but now he's f**ked up in about every way you could imagine, homeless in his home town of Norwich, and none of his friends and very few of his family seem to want to touch him as he brings destruction everywhere he goes.

I was also a bit involved with the mental health thing when it was all closing down, as my girlfriend at the time was working with MIND. Even the people running the "halfway house" she would assist at knew that a lot of the people there should be in a mental hospital for a while longer, and quite a few of the guys and girls who were put into their own flat probably should have been at the "halfway house" for a couple of years more. They already warned of what was going to happen, and it started even back then. I remember helping them collect for MIND on St. Stephens when an old homeless guy came up to me, asked me what I was collecting for, and then told me I should just give the money directly to him because he was mental (his words, not mine).

I laughed and gave him a quid, but felt pretty uncomfortable because he had a valid point. He needed that pound to buy just a portion of chips or something, right there and then. I was collecting for an organisation which would put it together from donations all over the country, take overhead out of it, then use it to fund coffee shops run as rehabilitation for mental health patients. The ones who needed it most had already fallen out of the system and would not see any benefit at all.

Posted By: Steve in Holland, Jan 24, 19:18:22