Letters to the Editor: Is California even capable of treating the mentally ill forced into care?

To the editor: Anita Chabria’s Dec. 2 column provided a good overview of vexing issues regarding appropriate care of the seriously mentally ill, but it overlooked a critical question — where would such individuals be housed? And how would those costs be covered?

In the late 1960s, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan oversaw the closure of expensive psychiatric hospitals in California, in favor of community solutions that didn’t exist and nobody wanted to pay for. Virtually the only institutional care settings left in California are forensic hospitals, reserved for those convicted of crimes or found not guilty by reason of mental illness.

For decades, L.A. County’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility has been the largest de facto mental institution in the state, relegating thousands of individuals to inhumane conditions. The main alternative is life, and eventually death, on the streets.

Wealthier communities keep homeless communities at bay under the guise of compassion — “these individuals shouldn’t be on the street, they need help!” Indeed, the most vulnerable among us need help, and it is up to all of us as a civilized society to make that help available — and bear the costs.

Susan Hough, South Pasadena

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To the editor: Only the most heartless or jaded among us would not feel sadness about the plight of Maddie Delaney, a homeless woman with schizoaffective disorder who died after being hit by a truck.

The situation with mental illness-related homelessness requires that we all put politics aside and use some common sense. Involuntary intervention is a common-sense approach to getting mentally ill people into a safer environment.

Yes, it is difficult to evaluate mental illness, and yes, it is important that these people are treated with care and respect. But proper intervention is a good thing, and it is far better to “over” intervene than “under” intervene.

Today, the “lock them up” people on one aide and the “give them a tent on the beach” people on the other have failed to solve the problem. It is time to cast both aside and use the billions wasted by the them to create an aggressive new government and social institution with independent leadership to address this problem. The money is there; it simply must be better spent.

I wish incoming L.A. Mayor Karen Bass well and hope she has the common sense, courage and determination required to solve this problem.

Mike Stern, Los Angeles