LA case study: Homelessness stats spiked by pols' indifference to mental illness, addiction

Many in SJ, including Mayor Mahan, have called for the homelessness crisis to be addressed from its primary causes of mental illness and substance abuse, seeing that over 80% of SCC's (wait, isn't mental health the County's job, Supe Ellenberg?) jail population have an open mental health case. In an e-mailer, the LA Alliance For Human Rights sweeps us to SoCal, where the LA Board of Supes is hedging on bolstering much-needed treatment programs, in favor of subsidizing drug abuse and ignoring rampant mental illness. The destructive fallout—and need for reform, in LA and SJ alike—described below.

In the last few years, the issue of homelessness has changed from being characterized as one of an affordable housing shortage to focusing on mental illness and substance use. Last week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra joined Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to focus on these often-deadly root causes of homelessness.

Mayor Bass said that “If we are serious about ending homelessness, we have to understand that — front and center - we have to address substance abuse and mental health.” That's why the LA Alliance has started a petition to demand L.A. County address these issues front and center.

Unfortunately, the L.A. Board of Supervisors is completely out of step, even when informed by its experts, with what is going on in homeless encampments and on the street. According to a report released last month by the county Department of Public Health, fentanyl overdoses are driving an unprecedented increase in death among people experiencing homelessness in the County. In addition, since 2019, the Board has been aware that its own experts have recommended an increase of 3,000 treatment beds for people with mental illnesses and drug addictions. The Board has refused to follow up on this needed recommendation.

That doesn’t mean that the Board hasn’t acted. Instead of providing life-saving treatment to increase sobriety, reduce homelessness, and improve self-sufficiency, L.A. County is supplying pipes and paraphernalia to assist in maintaining addictions to methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin.

This email was originally published by the LA Alliance For Human Rights.

Read more on the crucial links between homelessness, mental illness, and substance abuse here, here, and here. And see former CM Johnny Khamis’ holistic perspective here.

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