Stakeholder Control: Solving Homelessness & Care for Mentally Ill
user profile
Taminad.Crittenden
 February 28 2023
more_horiz

    The mentally ill who have not committed crimes, and the deliberately homeless, should have options: a one acre plot land, or a group living complex, with both options always available. All addicts can be considered mentally ill.


    The group living complex could be a traditional prison, or it could be a group prison farm established under previously articulated Stakeholder Control principles, in which the pre-existing owner(s) interview newcomers to determine whether to admit them.


    In reality, it is rarely the case that a mentally ill person who poses a physical danger to others has not yet committed some lesser crime. The crime could be rather minor, such as trespass on property, or stalking. It could be a crime to camp in public city parks, trashing them and preventing the general public from using them.


    Society could take such people who have committed minor crimes, transport them potentially hundreds or thousands of miles away to their one acre plot of land, and then imprison them there for a few days, weeks, or months, whatever the corresponding criminal sentence is. Society could offer them continuing support, like it gives to those who still do not have freedom, to continue living on their one acre plots even after their sentence ends.

    Regardless of whether someone is mentally ill or not, is it so wrong for someone to want to live a wandering lifestyle without having a permanent residence at an address they own or rent long term? These people are deliberately homeless. Doubtless it is true that many modern homeless who currently “say” they “want” to be homeless actually would choose a permanent residence if more options like the ones imagined earlier this article were available to them. However, it is also undoubtedly true that there will always be some people who nevertheless have no wish for a permanent residence.


    How can society learn to tolerate this choice?


    If the deliberately homeless were to seek out wilderness areas to live and associate with each other in, and somehow feed themselves in those areas, that would almost completely eradicate the tension between them and settled society.


    Homeless people, whether mentally ill or deliberately homeless, though, almost universally do not seek out wilderness areas. Instead, they camp out on the little public land cities have. Already city residents do not have very large parks; when the homeless take over those parks, city residents have no ability to enjoy them as parks. Homeless people effectively become the owners and sole possessors of city parks.


    For homeless who have not committed crimes, society could continue offering them housing in cities. Merely camping in a city park until offered help should not qualify as a crime, but if a homeless person found in a city park refuses free housing, then society should have the right to send that homeless person to a one acre plot or prison at the discretion of the homeless person.


    And society could thereby treat the homeless and the mentally ill the same.


    _______________


    Support Non-Violence writing by tipping me at Ko-Fi.com, committing to a Medium.com membership, by donating some Ether! 0x5ffe3e60a7f85a70147e800c37116b3ad97afd5e


    Seems like a nice place for a one acre plot of land.


    prison prison reform overincarceration mental illness homelessness social justice
    159
    0
    159 views
    Filter By:

    Please confirm your account