Funding woes hurt homeless, reads the headline in The Courier Times. Actually, it is the mixing of mental health services with housing for the homeless that hurts the homeless. “And when county departments divide these funds among different local initiatives” said Donna Duffy-Bell, administrator of the Bucks County Department of Health…, “more money sometimes goes towards more visible priorities, like opioid addiction, rather than hidden ones like homelessness” the article continues.
So, people who just need a place to stay are slighted because funds are used mainly for drug abuse. In the article, officials juxtapose homelessness with mental “illness”. Officials say the homeless aren’t required to be tested for mental problems, but they usually do (usually bamboozled into) and they imply homelessness and mental illness are one in the same. Bull!
Allen Johnson, a recovery coach with HOST, a program which combines mental health with homeless outreach, which is experiencing funding cuts, once told me that he doesn’t believe in housing first. He explained that people have to get straight first before they can get housing. Really? This presupposes that homeless people are nuts who need the mental health services of HOST. The facts were changed to protect the mental health industry. It’s a way to get public funds for the shrinks and Big Pharm.
It’s Public Funding Time (parody of Fats Domino’s Finger Popping Time)
It’s public (doy-dee doy-dee) funding time
It is pub lic…funding ty-ime
I feel so good
I’m on the public dime
Hey now hey now hey now hey now
Here comes Allen here comes Keith
Allen’s visiting all the homeless sites on his beat
It’s public (doy-dee doy-dee) funding time
It is pub lic…funding ty-ime
I feel so good (dee-doy doy dee-doink)
I’m on the public dime
Hey now hey now hey now hey now…
It seems to be what’s happening to HOST is similar to President Trump cutting the fat and crap from the EPA. Accomplishing the goal of being good stewards of our natural resources can be done less expensively. Likewise, by cutting the programs for mental health removes lots of unwanted fat from a bloated bureaucracy. Penndel Mental Health, for instance, just pumps patients with legal dope and psychobabble: “language that is used by people who talk about mental and emotional problems and that is seen as silly or meaningless: psychological jargon.” – Merriam-Webster
I’ve observed people who go to the community meals for the homeless and needy who have gone to the clinic get worse. But when they get Biblical counsel, I’ve seen people get better.
The church, not secular psychiatry/psychology should fill this void in mental health programming by getting even more involved in helping people with problems.
A view of the church versus psychology: http://www.christianpsych.org/wp_scp/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/dp220-2.pdf
As to the defunding of HOST, another parody from the They’re Coming to Take Me Away Band:
Don’t Think Freely (parody of Buck Owen’s Act Naturally)
Well, they’re going to put me in the nuthouse
They want to make a monkey out of me
They’re going to put me in the nuthouse
And all they have to do
Is round up me
Well, they are going have to chase me real far
They’re going to hunt me and they can’t really tell
If I really need to be in the nuthouse
They expect me to play the part for them real well
I hope you’ll come and see me in the nuthouse
Maybe you can slip me a file in some cake
I hope you’ll come and see me in the nuthouse
Where I’m all doped up and can’t think freely
They want to put me in the nuthouse
That’s because they don’t think I am OK
Well the only reason I am in the nuthouse
Is that I’m homeless in Bucks County PA
Well, they are going have to chase me real far
They’re going to hunt me and they can’t really tell
If I really need to be in the nuthouse
They expect me to play the part for them real well
I’ll be a homeless collection in the nuthouse
From the state they want to collect their precious bounty
I’ll be a monkey caged there in the nuthouse
Where I’m all doped up and can’t think freely
They want to put me in the nuthouse
That’s because they don’t think I am OK
Well the only reason I am in the nuthouse
Is that I’m homeless in Bucks County PA
Is that I’m homeless in Bucks County PA
Dupe-dupe a looney Dupe-dup a looney Dupe-dupe a looney…
They’re coming to take me away ah-hah he-he ah-hah ah-hah he-he ah-hah he-he…