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Homelessness and Mental Illness Intervening in the lives of the homeless could help save their lives. Many of the homeless population have some sort of mental illness or disorder. This could be anything from PETS to Schizophrenia to Bipolar disorder. These people are without their regular medication, which can cause their diseases to take over. Without any family support, many of these people turn to robberies to get their medication. Some even turn to suicide when they can take no more.
Even if the person refuses the help, at least help was offered. Not many homeless people get the chance for help, without institutions. They are shy to acknowledge that they have an illness, which means not reaching out for help. They are afraid that people will look down on them and put them into mental institutions. “The Housing First (HP) approach for homeless adults with serious mental illness has gained support as an alternative to the mainstream “Treatment First” (TFH) approach. (Pageant, Stanhope, Hometown & Assistance, 2009) The difference between Treatment First and Housing First is that Housing First focuses on a stable place for the person/people to stay before focusing on the drug problems hat the homeless may have, whereas Treatment First focuses more on the sobriety of the homeless than they do on the housing stability. It has been found through studies that, according to (Pageant, Stanhope, Hometown & Assistance, 2009), “Housing First significantly reduces the rate of substance use and substance abuse treatment utilization; they were also less likely to leave their program. This could be good news for people who want to help the homeless assimilate Into society. By knowing that a stable house Is more beneficial than solving their drug problems, you can get more of hose poor mentally diseased people off of the street and Into a safe shelter. If we can get even one person off of the streets, that Is 1 less person who Is at risk. If we can get all willing homeless people Into safe homes, then we can focus on reducing their symptoms with drugs, but not before they are off of the streets.
It will do no good to give the homeless drugs If they do not have a place to go. Drugs can only do so much for a person. They need some stability In their lives to function more “normally. ” There was a study done by the National Institute of Health that “assessed he effectiveness of a previously tested model, Critical Time Intervention (CIT), In producing an enduring reduction In homelessness for persons with severe mental Illness who were discharged from Inpatient psychiatric treatment faceless. (Herman, D. , 2011) The study Involved taking 1 50 previously homeless men and women, all of who had a severe mental Illness. They all were also previously released from psychiatric hospitals. They were randomly assigned either usual care or Critical Time Intervention. Chit’s mall focus Is to translator the responsibility of support to community services. This can reduce the future risk of homelessness. The results of the study were that there were less homeless people In the CIT group, at the end of the study.
This shows that the application of long-term support, such as shelters and homes, are way more effective at reducing homelessness than short-term support, such as drugs. There Is no way for this problem to go away over night. It Is going to people who have no choice but to live on the street. Until then, there are going to be people, who don’t deserve to not have somewhere that they call home, who are alone on the street having to deal with their disease.