Homeless? Mentally Ill? Try the Dickson Backpackers

Chop71 said :

I wonder if that has anything to do with our house being broken into in Dickson, Our next door neighbours were robbed 3 times in a year.

Dickson = great food, bad place to live

i have friends live on the street off limestone leads up to ainslie village – they get knocked over six or seven times a year… so it could be worse!

mental health is a sadly neglected peice of public policy that doesn’t look likely to benefit from any government interventions soon, for all the noise and bluster in the recent election campaign. it is a major driver of homelessness and we needed kevin oh seven back to attack that; ginger rules jules will pay it lip service and we’ll go on with backpackers and cardboard boxes under trees filled with people in dire need and getting sfa support.

I wonder if that has anything to do with our house being broken into in Dickson, Our next door neighbours were robbed 3 times in a year.

Dickson = great food, bad place to live

If you’re going to invest in bricks and mortar, invest in bedsitters for people on low (pension-like) incomes to rent. They would probably be able to live in the community except that there’s no low income rental accommodation left on the market, and much of what is on the market is designed for people living with 3 or 4 other people. Many of these people are likely to live alone, and don’t really want to share a house/flat.

And if paying their rent/bills is too much, get someone to case manage their finances who doesn’t have an interest in their accommodation revenue.

We need to care for these people and if that means institutionalising them, so that they are medicated, bathed, feed and decently cared for, then I am all for it.

When I lived in Qld many of the mental institutions were closed down as they were deemed “inhumane”. What happened to the patients without support was they became homeless. They ended up living rough or going from halfway house to halfway house. They were basically treated like walking dollar signs by many of the owners of the halfway houses, because their pensions were deposited into the owners trust account, and they lived in appalling conditions. It was only after a fire gutted one of these houses, killing several residents, that new laws were introduced to protect residents.

There has to be a better way of treating these people.

sepi said :

The ACT should have built a mental health facility instead of a gaol.

Yep, institutionalise them all, that’ll fix the problem.

While I don’t like the idea of sending people to a backpackers, there are no other options aside from booting them on to the street.

What we need is an asylum 🙂

The ACT is building a mental health facility, that’s why one of the many carparks the hospital has been closed off.

im sure the tourism people are real happy.

… I cannot believe that Gallagher knew this was happening and did nothing about it.

Really?

The ACT should have built a mental health facility instead of a gaol. They could have gone crazy with human rights too, and really achieved something.

If I recall correctly there was an incident at a city backpackers where police were called to a distressed older woman recently.

I wonder if this is another instance of ACT quality mental health care?