Many homeless come from caring families

In the April 5 Albuquerque Journal “Talk of the Town,” a reader wrote a comment titled “Downtown hopeless with homeless situation.”

Toward the end of her opinion she stated, “Somehow, they have lost themselves due to their upbringing and lack of care or their low self-esteem, or some combination”.

I, and probably many others, took particular offense to “their upbringing” as many of the homeless come from families that care about them, and their upbringing was normal in many aspects.

Their homelessness has come about due to many conditions with “mental health” probably being the No. 1 issue, which is compounded by drug use/abuse. This brings up the age-old adage, “what comes first the chicken or the egg,” i.e. what comes first mental illness or drug abuse.

I’m not sure anyone will ever be able to answer that but I do know that illegal drugs tend to make mental illness worse, where prescribed drugs definitely help. Unfortunately, the person suffering from mental illness doesn’t always realize this and prescription drugs do have side-effects that may be difficult to deal with.

Homeless people have families and a good many of those families care about their son or daughter, but due to circumstances are unable to have them live with them and financially are unable to provide for them but it definitely doesn’t mean they don’t love them or that they came from a family where their upbringing was questionable.

It’s time for folks to wake up and realize that if they are one of the “lucky” ones who haven’t been touched by having a loved one affected by mental illness, drug use/abuse, homelessness they shouldn’t be judgmental. GWYNNE CLEAR

Albuquerque