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About a year ago homelessness became a public issue. There was a growing concern for the increasing numbers of homeless people, on the street, and obviously in great need. Two political parties had promises on homelessness as part of their election platform in the recent Ontario election. Premier Mike Harris, whose party won the election, promised to make it easier to treat the homeless mentally ill people. Toronto commissioned the Golden Report on Homelessness, which was very thorough and widely praised. All three levels of government in Canada, federal, provincial, and municipal became involved. There was even a national conference on the problem. Some groups asked that homelessness be declared a national emergency, one that required special relief funding. The burden of responsibility fell on municipal governments, though, who sought assistance from provincial and federal levels of government.
There is some debate as to what percentage of the homeless are homeless because they have an untreated and disabling mental illness. Figures range from 10% to 70%. I think it's fairly safe to assume that one third of the homeless have an untreated psychotic disorder, often schizophrenia. Amongst the female homeless the percentage is probably much higher. Despite all the press releases and studies the response so far has been to simply increase the stock of emergency shelter beds to meet the increase in the sheer number of homeless. Everyone recognized that homelessness was a complex issue, but the trend has been to focus on the stock of affordable housing, assuming that if people could afford housing, they wouldn't become homeless. I doubt that will solve the problem. Many homeless people have disabling substance abuse problems and/or an untreated mental illness. If these people do not receive treatment for their conditions no number of affordable housing units will prevent their homelessness. There are essentially two kinds of people with schizophrenia, the ones who take medication and the ones who don't. The ones who don't eventually become homeless or end up in jail. There are always exceptions but that is a general truth that housing experts don't appreciate. You would expect that people known to have schizophrenia would be hospitalized when they relapsed but the number of hospital beds has been reduced, and involuntary hospitalization is controversial. Essentially, no one would hospitalize a homeless psychotic person across North America, unless they threatened someone or indicated suicidal intent. So they wander the streets, particularly in large urban centers.
The copyright of the article Homelessness in Schizophrenia is owned by Ian Chovil. Permission to republish Homelessness in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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