I myself spent myself some time on the streets as a young age, during a time when my bipolar disorder was completly unmanaged and I was not coming at life through a "sane" frame of mind. I've lived with many of these homless people, and they are not as helpless and "victims" of symptoms out of there control. Many of these individuals are in fact on SSDI with the oppurtunity for mental health treatment. I myself had qualified for medicaid and was able to get to a point where my mental health was managed. I remember one month, the shelter when from packed to damn near empty, because SSI checks came in and everybody got motel rooms aned booze. Homelessness in Utah is much easier to get out of than a lot of other cities, because the road home and St. Annes offer you residency as long as you are seeking employment. A large portion of these individuals do refuse to accept any level of help. Years later, after achieving a fair level of success, I lived in new developments that were right in the middle of Rio Grande. Any individual that is living in the parks or outside of the shelter is there for drugs, not to get out of homelessness. There are plenty of resources for the homeless to recover from their situations. It is their choice to use them or not. Difficult circumstances may have put them their, but they are not helpless victims that have no oppurtunity to get there lives under control.
Christian |
Salt Lake City, UT |
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