MENTAL ILLNESS AND ADDICTION ARE COMMON AMONG HOMELESS PEOPLE, CREATING AN ADDED CHALLENGE FOR CHILDREN
By Paul Bennett, volunteer blog writer at Mentor a Promise The mayoral race in Los Angeles was recently in the news. Incumbent Karen Bass faced a strong showing from former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who among other issues campaigned on the assertion that Bass has allowed an already dire homeless and crime problem on the streets in certain parts of the city to grow substantially worse. One of Pratt’s main arguments was that drug addiction and mental illness, not lack of housing per se, keep people on the streets, and that providing care and rehab, even if forced (as opposed to providing needles and drugs for “harm reduction”) would go far to help solve the homeless problem. Which made me think of New York. Is the situation the same here? New York differs from LA on several fronts. For one, it doesn’t have large areas of concentrated homelessness, as in LA’s downtown “skid row,” or tents and recreational vehicles stretching for blocks on end in some areas, despite the fact there ar...
