The issue with institutionalization (besides SCOTUS ruling it violates the ADA in 1999’s Olmstead v LC, rendering it illegal for anyone with a disability), is that it’s expensive. That’s why Reagan defunded them all.
To be clear, deinstutionalization was a good idea, but unlike JFK’s push, Reagan pushed for it without replacing institutions with well-funded community services. Which would be cheaper than institutions, most of which sit unoccupied and decaying, so there’s also the question of where Trump wants to put these people.
This doesn’t get said enough. Getting rid of them was a legitimately good idea, the some of the abuses in those places was hair-raising. We just didn’t replace them with anything, so the mentally ill all just turned into homeless mentally ill, which just made more people miserable, which in turn probably contributes to more individual incidents of mental illness occuring.
Many also ended up in jails and prisons
And many more simply died. As it turns out, releasing the disabled onto the street, surprisingly, wasn’t a perfect option.
Canada did the same damn thing at the same damn time with the same damn repercussions because our PM followed Reagan around like a damn lapdog. 🤬
Getting rid of them was a SHIT idea what are u talking about?!?!
Exactly what I said. Needed to be done, just needed an improved plan instead. Choices were No Plan, A Bad Plan, and A Good Plan. Mental institutions were a bad plan. We got rid of them and went with no plan. We need a third possibility nobody tried–a good plan.
It comes down to the same issue with the police. When you look at the effort it would take to reform what was wrong, it would be nearly impossible. A better idea would be to toss out everything and start from scratch.
Just take a look at how mental institutions were in the last moments before they were closed: https://timeline.com/willowbrook-the-institution-that-shocked-a-nation-into-changing-its-laws-c847acb44e0d?gi=187e20cd91e2
https://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2016/01/the-story-that-revealed-willowbrooks-horrors/
Im in the disability field and honestly I feel like we need something and need it bad. Not institutions, at least not like they were, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see some people in the disability community respond positively to this with the hopes that its different this time, lord know the people who like him don’t believe his words at face value. I can also tell you thers definitely is a not insignificant amount of people in the community who have a neutral to faborable feeling on Trump.
The key here I think is that during the pandemic, even before mask mandates, we started seeing services get cut, orgs defunded, and staff reduced. So much of the disability community right now is relying on support staff and self directed program funding, which is essentially the disbursement of medicare and medicaid funding to one individual, not necessary with a medical background, to help the person with the disability with their day to day stuff and goals stated in their Individual Service Plan. The flexibility is great but its just one person at a time, they don’t even get a budget to do things typically.
A lot of people with disabilities are missing the structure of actual organizations that has the resources to do more than what a one on one support worker can, and someone on Trumps team is either smart enough to know that, or quite lucky.
question of where Trump wants to put these people.
Decriminalize/legalize all drugs, transfer all for-profit prisons back to the government and/or not for profit charities, shuffle prisoners around to free up prisons to be converted to mental healthcare and drug rehabilitation facilities, and fund it with a taxed and regulated drug market.
Not that he thinks far enough to come up with that.
Decriminalization of all drugs is a terrible idea. Ask Oregon how that’s working out for them.
Edit For the downvoters, come on out to Oregon and see it first hand.
Republicans made a deal with JFK to phase out mental health hospitals and replace them with community based facilities that had a more home like atmosphere.
They did the gutting part.
Then JFK was assassinated.
Republicans decided that they didn’t have to do any more after that, and LBJ used most of his political capital to get the voting rights act passed.
That’s why our mental health system is so broken.
If republicans wanted to fix the system, they could start with funding the VA. Many of our troops wind up with mental health conditions due to their time in the service.
Support our troops is a hollow catch phrase…
back when they rolled that out (Bush era) was when they really started assaulting people with vacuous catchphrases. Opposition to the Iraq was was answered with ‘support the troops!’ which made no sense… okay, I support them, I don’t want them to go get PTSD from urban warfare and killing civilians and leave their lives here to sit around in a tent in the desert at 130 degrees. Another one was if you opposed anything Bush/Cheney was doing, “Why do you hate America??”, which is obviously a ridiculously loaded question and very shitty debate tactic.
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Don’t forget the Ronald Reagan angle:
The VA needs some serious reform in how they operate. A major problem with staffing there is just plain burn out and then 6 months to hire a replacement. The entire organization is understaffed and over worked.
A Democrat proposes a way to help the mentally ill: HOW ARE WE GOING TO PAY FOR IT?
A Republican proposes a more expensive way to punish the mentally ill: NOW THIS IS GOOD POLICY
They flat out don’t understand how federal laws are enforced. Most of the shitty anti-welfare or anti-handout “ideas” they have would not save money. I always ask these chucklefucks if they would still support those ideas if they cost more than they saved. They can never answer that question.
Driving the news: “When I am back in the White House, we will use every tool, lever, and authority to get the homeless off our streets,” Trump said in a video posted on his campaign site in August, saying that he’ll work with states to ban urban camping.
- Trump said his administration would offer treatment and other resources for people who are “just temporarily down on their luck” or have less severe mental health issues.
- “And for those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring them back to mental institutions, where they belong,” he said, “with the goal of reintegrating them back into society once they are well enough to manage.”
So “every tool, lever, and authority” except building shelters and affordable housing. Because, of course, the homeless themselves are the problem that needs to be fixed, not a symptom of a society that needs to be fixed.
Yesterday, browsing wikipedia, stumbled on articles that talked about this very thing, on how Russia took advantage of mental health systems. They started to classify nonconforming, rebels as mentally ill. A frequently used diagnosis was sluggish schizophrenia. Anyone who was socially awkward, thought differently got this diagnosis. Cuz if someone is questioning our government, they must be sick in the head
They used this heavily for decades to discredit political rivals, forcible confinement, lock them away, work camps. Think gulag archipelago.
Can you link those here ?
Interesting, thanks
This is how it begins. Trump and his idiot sidekick fascist moron Mike Johnson will try to do a 1939 round 2 against all the gays, transgenders, stoners and while they’re at it the jews again because fuck people.
As an American Jew, I think one of the big reasons why the right is so pro-Israel is because it gives them a place to ship people like me to. They will ignore that I was born in the US, have never been to Israel, have no plans to go there, and that my ancestors didn’t even come from there. (Eventually, if you go far enough back, they might, but my attempts to trace my ancestry hit a dead end in Poland.)
The right love that they could just round up all the Jews in America, stick them on a plane, and dump us in Israel to “dispose” of us.
Duh! Why u think Israel isn’t in Europe?!?! No one wanted the Jews anywhere near them so they shoved them into Palestine.
They weren’t “shoved”, zionism was thought up and promoted by Jewish people. Widespread antisemitism in Europe was indeed a major reason for it, but still.
Fair. Imo they should have been given Germany instead.
I agree that we should take care of our mentally disabled instead of letting them roam the streets.
I do not think that’s what cheetoman would do with those institutions.
I’m British and we have our fair share of crazy homeless people. However, I was absolutely shocked when I visited San Francisco at the levels of crazy I saw wandering the streets. It was unbelievable and would just straight up not happen in the UK, these people would be in a hospital or care home.
He belongs in one, that’s for sure.
Holy fuck this is fantastic! Finally an AI use that I can get on board with, typos and all!
If you like typos, this one is for you.
we will bring them back to mental institutions, where they belong
As someone that struggles with mental issues, and has spent some time in a facility when I was at my worst, this line pisses me off to no end. Feels no different than what he would say about so-called criminals or immigrants. Wish he would go where he belongs.
A comprehensive mental health system would have both out-patient and in-patient treatment, just like with physical health. The problem is we’ve had both extremes - all institutionalization, and all out-patient.
Very true. The place I stayed in for a few days was good though and they had out and in-patient treatment. And they recommended doing in-patient treatment where you would go in for most of the day but could go home after, after I did my locked in in-patient. I was happy with their treatment, but yeah, very much exception to the rule.
Partial Hospitalization isn’t super rare. I wouldn’t call it an exception to the rule. Many chose not to pursue it, but programs are out there.
Ah good to know. I hadn’t seen it before, but that might just be saying more about locations I used to live. Thanks!
Partial Hospitalization exists.
I get it, mental institutions are responsible for some of the most egregious human rights violations of the 20th century.
But that’s an argument to REFORM those institutions, not ELIMINATE them.
We should learn from the lessons of the past and, at the same time, make sure people get the mental health care they need.
If they can be successfully treated and released? Fantastic. If they need to be held for the rest of their lives? It’s better than allowing them to roam the streets posing a danger to themselves and others.
We see it in Portland ALL THE TIME.
I like where your head is at but I doubt Donald thinks that way. He’s not really a reform person.
I’ve worked in both Community Living Housing and one of the Last Institutions in Canada (Which I recently learned has closed as well). And I got FAR more training and resources to do my job at the Institution, and the residents had far more supports and programming. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, we need to reopen institutions, and just have better systems in place to prevent abuse
Community Living is the institution. It certainly has its problems though.
I guess my point is that governments dont have infinite amounts of money. With traditional institutions all of the money that gets budgeted all goes towards one complex where it can be used to its fullest, which allows for better funding for staff training and better community programming for the residents, as well as specialty staff (MDC had dedicated dr’s for the residents, providing them faster access to a doctor than the rest of us would get). Funding issues aside, community living is great for medium to high functioning individuals, but can be AWFUL for lower functioning ones. In an institution, a high needs low functioning individual can get more socializing in because they can have 1 staff dedicated to them while the others can just generally overlook the other residents. With community living, as the staff is spread out, this can lead to high needs individuals to be locked up in a household on their own, as there isnt the staffing to be able to let them share a place with others or to visit the community (where they would be a danger to themselves and the community). And lastly, since the staff is spread out, there are FAR more instances where theres only a single staff in the household, which personally I think actuallY INCREASES the chance of abuse
I’m sure you know more than me, which should be easy since I don’t know much. My mom was a community liver all my life. Bureaucracy is a fucker for sure, but I wonder if this is also a grass is greener thing? Maybe your institution was good because it was the only one? Community Living is fucked because it follows the path of all Canadian agencies? My mom certainly had nothing good to say about the nuns who ran the show in her youth.
She didn’t have many good things to say about upper management in CL either though.
I think community living is amazing for medium and high functioning individuals, if you can be guided into being safe for yourself and around others reasonably easily by a staff member? Community Living gives you a more “Normal” life. Low functioning individuals however that pose a danger to themselves and others end up far more isolated with community living than they’d be in an institution. MDC, the institution I worked at had just as horrific a history as most of the other institutions did, I think though, after working there, that was more due to the times than it was due to it being an institution, as, like I said, as of 10 years ago, there was two weeks of training before staff was even allowed to start working on any of the wings, meanwhile with community living I was kind of just thrown into the fire and had to figure things out as I went. Positives with community living mentioned though, I DO have to once again point out we live in a capitalist society, and Community Living requires more funding spread out, which is harder to pry from the government, than an institution gets, which means it inevitably ends up getting less funding for its residents.
Okay. I agree.
Now tell me with a straight face you think Orange Face is looking to help these people instead of just removing them from view.
Oh, definitely not, but that’s not a reason to not try. :) It’s a reason to invest and make it actually work.
Oh for sure. I’m just not going to be surprised when these and the safe camp sites for the homeless turn into concentration camps.
He’s looking for a future home, me thinks.
Counterpoint: Mentally ill people have the same rights as everyone else and therefore can’t be locked up without a criminal conviction, no matter how annoying their symptoms may be.
Then we need a national version of the Baker act to commit them for their own welfare. Just because they haven’t harmed anyone else (yet) doesn’t mean allowing them to roam loose isn’t actively harming them themselves.
How about before we look into finding ways of permanently locking away mentally ill or neurodivergent people, who are already relegated as second class citizens, we find ways of shifting our civic budgetary concerns away from bloated PD coffers and into mental health and advocacy programs instead?
Why not both?
Here in Portland we’re fed up with the mentally ill self medicating on meth and fentanyl, waving axes and machetes at people.
I wish I was exaggerating.
They shouldn’t have to victimize the general public before we do something.
Yeah, no thanks. The moment you lock away groups of people “for their own good” is the moment the majority of the voting public dehumanizes them and only ever perpetuates an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality in regards to policy.
There is a real storm coming across all of the world in regards to our collective mental health crisis and we’re doing a very good job of ignoring it or thinking that reactionary policy that historically has shown to be terrible on most accounts is the best way to confront it.
This is going to play out much the same way as our climate crisis unless we start truly examining, at a policy level, why our contemporary institutions are failing us collectively.
Again, that’s a reason to reform the process and make it work.
The alternative?
But, that’s SoCiaLiSM!
You really should have a solid financial plan in place if you want to become mentally ill in america. Its not up to my tax dollars to subsidize your choices!
I’m sure he’d love to revive the tradition of putting “troublesome” women into them.
Yep, that was the first thing I thought of after reading the headline. I read ‘The woman who.would not be silenced’ and it left a big impression on me.
One of Ronald Reagan’s gifts to California was a homelessness problem. He closed down the state’s asylums and never built the community based netowrk that was supposed to care for the mentally ill. The homeless caused an increse in petty crimes, which meant you needed more police and jails.
It worked so well he took it national when he was elected President.
For himself?
Why should he get to pick his prison? Just assign him to one and move along.
