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Post by mellowyellow on Jun 5, 2010 22:03:05 GMT -5
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Post by notsomessyshell on Jun 5, 2010 22:13:39 GMT -5
Poor lady. The article was well written. She is not being blamed. I love the last paragraph because it states that bedbugs are not caused by hoarding or messiness. Even mentioning her apartment may not be the epicenter of the infestation. Interesting.
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Post by success19 on Jun 5, 2010 22:15:46 GMT -5
Well that cured me of collecting stuff for sure - bedbugs are hard to get rid of. Wonder where the woman ended up? Sad.
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Post by moggyfan on Jun 6, 2010 9:30:24 GMT -5
A bit of a rant here:
The article says:
He’s [the landlord] angry that the social services system does such a poor job of helping people with mental illness to find safe housing where they’ll be looked after.
He’s angry there was no one making sure the woman wasn’t in trouble.
“I can only go into an apartment so often,” he said, “and I can only go in if the tenant has a problem. Why isn’t there someone taking care of her? She’s ill. Her social worker knows she’s ill. We have to have housing in this city where people get proper care.”
I don't know what the law says in Canada about treatment for mentally ill persons who do not wish to accept treatment or who do not believe they need it.
In California, and I suspect in most of the United States, unless a person poses an immediate danger to self or others (usually interpreted as wanting to do violence to self or others), he or she cannot be required to accept mental health services or be required to take medication.
This leads to a ridiculous Catch-22 conundrum: You are mentally ill & desperately need help; however, because of your mental illness you don't believe you need help; therefore, no treatment can be given to you.
The streets of San Francisco are populated by a large number of mentally ill people acting out in very anti-social ways (urinating and defecating on the sidewalk, screaming at passers-by, accosting strangers, etc.) Some of these people also have substance abuse issues that exacerbate their problems.
But if they refuse social services, nobody can or will do anything about it. It's a real problem.
I wonder--no way of knowing--if the woman discussed in this article would have accepted help had it been offered? And if she had not, could she/should she have been required to?
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