PROPOSITION: MENTALLY ILL HOMELESS PEOPLE MUST BE LOCKED UP FOR PUBLIC SAFETY

AFFIRMATIVE: Choosing the Streets Over Shelters Is Dangerous for Everyone

- JARED MEYER

WALKING THROUGH DOWNTOWNS across the United States, one could be excused for becoming numb to outbursts from visibly disturbed and impaired individuals. Two decades ago, the idea that major American cities would condone (or in some cases, encourage) this situation was unthinkable. If a person was unable to take care of themselves, the options were moving to shelter or, if illness put themselves or others at risk, a clinical setting. Tent-filled homeless camps that stretch across city blocks or throughout public parks were simply not on the table.

A recent UCLA study confirmed the obvious: More than 75 percent of the unsheltered homeless surveyed have a substantial mental health problem, 75 percent have an alcohol or drug addiction, and the majority suffer from both. These afflictions, not a lack of housing, drive street homelessness in America.

Choosing to live with the waste, disease, and violence that accompanies homeless camps is a clear sign that someone is not in control and needs an intervention. The only way to solve this problem is to force people off the streets and into safer settings that can treat the root causes of homelessness.

Imagine if you were suffering from untreated schizophrenia or an out-of-control addiction to opioids and found yourself living in a dangerous street camp. You distrust everyone in the system and perhaps do not even realize you are sick. Would you want your loved ones or the government to be able to get you help even if you did not want it? Many people of sound mind would, by force if necessary.

Moving homeless individuals off the streets works. After Los Angeles cleared its notorious Skid Row in 2006, the number of homeless deaths in the city dropped by half. A 2010 study showed that the successful campaign also led to a 40 percent reduction in violent crime, with no spillover effects into other communities.