Murder in ‘The Jungle': Deadly mass shooting at Seattle homeless camp deepens crisis

[hollowdweller]

16. Excellent post

I can remember when they started moving people out of institutions.

We got a lot of what was called "pre release" cases. People who were going to be released, the institutions sent their records with them in hopes that we could get them benefits so they would have something to live on.

Many people were were not psychotic, IQ's weren't low enough to be MR, but they were as you say just unable to function in society.
They would either get upset and act out outside of an institution, or be taken advantage of.

I have a neighbor like this. He's been in prison a number of times for minor offenses. He's an alcoholic and gets into fights with people.

He told me last time he got out he wished he could have stayed in. Said he couldn't get a job, couldn't find a good place to live. In prison he had regular meals, a warm bed.

A lot of these people go in and out of jail.

I think tossing people out of mental institutions was cruel, I understand the idea behind it but the support that was supposed to happen got caught up in the 80's budget cuts and a lot of these people end up in jail a lot of the times.