#de-institutionalization

[lcatala]

I still regularly hear the myth that "de-institutionalization [the closing of mental asylum en masse] caused the homelessness crisis", repeated by both progressives and conservatives and blaming each other for it, so once again: —Most of the mentally ill homeless people are mentally ill as a result of being homeless, not the other way round. —Most of the mentally ill homeless people suffer mainly from depression and anxiety, not from the kind of severe psychosis that warrant forced institutionalization. —A lot of the people who used to be in mental institutions are no longer there either because of better triage (eg: old people with dementia or Alzheimer, who know have their own specialized institutions) or new treatments (eg: antibiotics have made mental deterioration due to syphilis a thing of the past). —De-institutionalization was not the one time deed of a singular actor (either the ACLU or Reagan, depending on who your politics tells you to blame). It was a bipartisan and decades-long process that followed over a century of public scandals about appalling systemic neglect and abuse in these institutions, with repeated failed attempts to reform them. —Homelessness is overwhelmingly caused by socio-economic factors rather than mental-health ones.

[psychbuilder]

After Decades in Institutions, a Bumpy Journey to a New Life

By RACHEL L. SWARNS The New York Times Originally published September 29, 2012 Here are some excerpts: Once viewed as outcasts to be shunned and isolated in institutions, hundreds of Georgia’s most disabled citizens are taking their first tentative steps back into society. Their fledgling journeys, marked by uncertainty, jubilation and some setbacks, are unfolding as officials embark on an ambitious plan to profoundly reshape the lives of the cognitively and physically impaired. It is a new strategy for Georgia, one of several states responding to mounting pressure from the Justice Department, which in recent years has threatened legal action against states accused of violating the civil rights of thousands of developmentally disabled people by needlessly segregating them in public hospitals, nursing homes and day programs. Mississippi, which has nearly 2,000 developmentally disabled people living in its institutions, began moving dozens of them out this spring. Virginia, which reached a settlement with the Justice Department this year, expects to move more than 400 people out by the end of the 2016 fiscal year. Here in Georgia, about 360 developmentally disabled patients have left state hospitals over the past two years, health officials say, moving mostly into small group homes that house four people each. About 400 more will leave over the next three years, nearly emptying the state’s institutions of people with severe mental disabilities, autism and dementia. Advocates for the disabled are hailing the move as akin to the demise of racial segregation. For the first time, people who have spent decades in hospital wards will live in the community, have some say in their day-to-day activities and get the opportunity to meet and mingle with their neighbors. “Everybody has a right to live in the world,” said Pat Nobbie, deputy director of the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities, who supports the shift. The entire story is here.