OPEN FORUM: "The crisis of homelessness is rooted in mental illness"
San Francisco Chronicle
Fred J. Martin, Jr
10/31/07
Will the crisis of the 1960s precipitated by the closing of California's state mental hospitals be perpetuated in San Francisco? Will the city continue attempting to sweep homeless from the streets and parks without a strategy for treatment of these mostly chronically mentally ill individuals? The San Francisco Department of Public Health has proposed to eliminate 22 inpatient psychiatric beds at San Francisco General Hospital as of January 2008. Next week, the Board of Supervisors will consider a supplementary appropriation to reverse this action.
If left to stand, however, this city would eliminate 22 out of 87 SFGH locked ward beds and shift the funding to an acute diversion unit and a voluntary urgent care program...[continued]
Fred J. Martin, Jr
10/31/07
Will the crisis of the 1960s precipitated by the closing of California's state mental hospitals be perpetuated in San Francisco? Will the city continue attempting to sweep homeless from the streets and parks without a strategy for treatment of these mostly chronically mentally ill individuals? The San Francisco Department of Public Health has proposed to eliminate 22 inpatient psychiatric beds at San Francisco General Hospital as of January 2008. Next week, the Board of Supervisors will consider a supplementary appropriation to reverse this action.
If left to stand, however, this city would eliminate 22 out of 87 SFGH locked ward beds and shift the funding to an acute diversion unit and a voluntary urgent care program...[continued]
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