Mentally ill homeless need chance to stabilize

Re “California must help those with mental health issues” (Aug. 11);

Susan Shelley’s argument that hospitals and other medical facilities should be able to provide beds for the mentally ill is right on. I’ve dealt with a long family history of mental illness and volunteered with various mental health organizations. We need to recognize we don’t have a cure for mental illness. The best we can do for most with bipolar or schizophrenia is to stabilize them with medications. But you can’t do that with them on the streets or generally unsupervised. Families and the mentally ill need someplace where medications can be administered for more than the 24 hour or the two week hold. Some incentives need to be used to get the person whose brain is not working properly to accept treatment and do it long enough to then get the supports to continue it on their own. Patient care and beds are desperately needed to accomplish this. Shelley’s recommendations should be considered seriously. increase in price of their house is a real gain in value. The fallacy is measured in the loss of the purchasing power of the dollar. A brand new house today requires the same amount of labor and the same quantity of materials as it did 30 years ago, so why does a house in California 30 years ago costing $30,000 cost close to $1 million today?

Indirectly, with Uncle Sam buying votes in exchange for free stuff without raising a penny in new taxes. The taxpayers would never approve of actual taxes to pay for the $970 thousand stealthy dollars they used to pay for things that sounded good.