Find safer places for homeless

 From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

“Tent cities” of homeless people are all over the place. A particularly noticeable one was the camp just closed down in Pawtucket on the west bank of the Seekonk River to make way for a soccer-stadium project, which might actually get built.

Many, probably most, of the people at this camp are mentally ill.  In these places they might find kindred spirits but they also face such dangers as exposure to the elements, assaults and thefts. And the atmosphere is conducive to alcohol and drug abuse.

These tent cities have been common since the de-institutionalization movement that got going in the late ‘60s, when officials hoped that new psychotropic medications would allow many of the mentally ill to be released from state mental hospitals, saving taxpayers money.  But for many mentally ill people this didn’t work out because they didn’t like the side-effects of these meds for such illnesses as schizophrenia and manic-depression (aka bi-polar disease). For that matter, some of these people like feeling “crazy.’’

Or some have not been  given adequate guidance on how to use the meds or don’t have a way to pay for them or can’t get to pharmacies to get them.

I think that we need more mental hospitals for long-term care. As for those people, mentally ill or not, who actually prefer to live in settings like tent cities, the states and localities should consider setting aside permanent places for them on public land, or rent space from private landowners, where the “campers’’ could be better monitored by police, social workers and public-health agencies. Moveable tent cities pose too many dangers. And be they temporary or permanent, they should not be near regular residential or commercial areas; they are too disruptive.

Folks seeking help with serious mental-health and/or substance-abuse problems might want to look at this Rhode Island state Web site to find available spaces at institutions.