It seems you believe the reasons behind homelessness are more complex than they actually are. In the case of addicts who are homeless because they can't get a job and function "normally" in society, do we prioritize solving the issues that got him/her addicted in the first place, or get him/her clean? I don't think anyone can have a productive conversation with that person until they are clean, and I don't think fully understanding the motivation behind their addiction will get them clean any quicker.
Respectfully, I think you're being too reductionist. I also think understanding motivations is KEY in helping someone. I'll give an example from my life. I know someone who was a terrible drunk. He'd drink to oblivion. His drinking went on to physical addiction. He was a mean, violent drunk.
He eventually stopped drinking, but his meanness and violent nature remained. Turned out it wasn't the drink itself, it was the deep underlying reasons of why he was self-medicating. The answer was never: Just stop drinking. It was never, just stop and things will improve. They didn't improve.
For street drugs, we should face a stark reality - taking recreational drugs to alter our minds is fully accepted in society today. And it's not young folk. No details from me, but I was sitting around a table at a pub with some acquaintances in their 50's and one guy said "man, my wife and I love spending a weekend at home with some wine and Cocaine." Turned out there was a normal routine. When did such a thing become acceptable? (Yes, I realize I must have been living under a rock at the time).
I also worked with people, which I've mentioned before, who worked (and played) long long hours in the City of London. I asked how they could possibly do it, and the answer was the same - just snort some of this.
In order to "cure" someone, you must address their ills. Without knowing what their ills are, we're applying band aids. Either way, what we're doing now isn't working, is it?
And why shouldn't they? They provide a service. And they don't bill working people, they bill the patient.
Oh, again this is easy to answer from firsthand experience. I paid for someone to get Methadone as they recovered from a Heroin addiction. I thought I'd need to pay for three months, six months, a year? But it went on for YEARS. Inquiring, there simply was no benefit for the provider of the service (the Methadone clinic) to ween their clients off Methadone. They made money from it. Personally, profit and healthcare is, at best, an agreement made in hell (with few exceptions).
I believe the problem can be solved. In a number of ways, too, including (but not limited to) an improved education system, free skills training, bringing back paid apprenticeship programs, returning the Employment Development Dept to its former glory, and privatizing family counseling, mental health, and drug rehab...because when the gov't takes those over, they fail.
Yes, privatization is not the answer for me, we'll have to agree to disagree. In fact, I think it both causes harm, and drives bad outcomes.
Personally, I don't believe our society lost its cohesiveness, I believe it was taken. And that might have been the unintended outcome of too much "interference"...but maybe not.
Not for me. We gave it up. We allowed it to happen. We always went for the easiest solution. We put *I* in front of "we" at every juncture, and here we are. We have given up the idea that we all matter, and put in place the idea that if I am okay, everything else is okay and no-one can tell me what to do. Society is always about freedom within a set of rules. Those rules have become watered down.
Sorry to repeat a stat, but the US spends around $38bn on the war on drugs every year. Yet drugs are everywhere, and it's acceptable to use them in social circles. I'm suggesting that a) What we're doing does not work; b) Drugs aren't the sole issue.
Apologies to those who don't like long posts. I invite Murmur to PM if necessary to protect the mental health of others.
