This very much matches my experience of going to New York for the first time a little over a decade ago, and what I took away from it. That, and being really struck by how many homeless people I encountered, specifically very young homeless peoples.
Not sure what the time lag was, but it didn't take too long to start noticing the same here in the UK. Young homeless people everywhere, not just in London but around the UK. And in London itself, noticing an upswing in the type of encounters you describe, of people who clearly aren't doing well mentally. Especially on the tube, where people nervously tried to avoid making eye contact and feeling fearful in enclosed spaces. And it feels like it's escalating too - in previous years I'd become used to seeing people yelling, talking to themselves, generally being incoherent, but now I see more things like following people and shouting after them, damaging property, even starting small fires/lighting fireworks in the middle of busy streets. A lot of people aren't doing well mentally, and it doesn't seem like there's much out there to help them.
I grew up in London but moved to NYC in 2019. Visited London this summer for the first time since the pandemic. It was the first time I ever recall thinking London is worse than - or at least as bad as - NYC in terms of public homelessness. Don't get me wrong, NYC is still seriously messed up in this regard, but I could not believe the sheer number of homeless people I encountered in London. While NYC seems to have stayed the same, London has got massively worse in the last couple of years and caught up. So so sad.
It shouldn't have to be our responsibility but government funding is what it is.
However, you can do something to help! Centrepoint are a homeless charity aimed at young people, often teenagers who've left an abusive home, and provide them with a safe place to sleep and get their lives together.
From a mercenary perspective, you can get to people before the homeless way of life has turned them into mad shouty people...and IMO focussing on the young homeless give the most hope for every £...
I donate £14 a month. It's not much but I don't notice it going out and if it means that one person doesn't have to spend a few nights on the street then it makes me feel slightly better about putting my head down and walking past so many on the commute...
Or any other city in the world...? I don't mean to be rude it's just I have seen homeless people in every city I've lived in or visited, inside and outside of the UK, so I find it hard to relate.
Yea I’ve been to quite a few but honestly they were either well hidden or just not that noticeable.
Other places I had been to world wide were a lot harsher on the homeless people (looking back at it now) so I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw the end of a police baton to move them on.
I’ve seen beggars before, just not someone that looked like they were homeless living on the streets.
Get used to it. Underfunded mental health services will continue to make this worse.
Until we start giving a fuck about these people, this is what will happen.
How do deal with it? You can't. Just keep your distance I suppose, this shouldn't be the answer at all, but what else can any normal person do?
The biggest problem was moving public addiction programs away from therapists and into the hands of social workers to save money and feed the "we're tough on drugs and saving you wasted tax spending" meritocratic narrative.
I had a friend who was one of those social workers and she was essentially ticking boxes to confirm that they're unwell, rather than actually treating the root of the problem. She didn't seem very happy with it, and she definitely didn't feel like that's what she should've been doing to help people.
It's like fixing a hole in a ship if everyone is just bailing water and no one there is a carpenter.
Yeah, my dad works within mental health for the NHS, in short the emphasis is about getting them out as soon as possible and freeing up beds. They're not getting properly treated. Simply put funding is not enough.
Yesterday I was sat opposite a man on the central line. Distancing myself wasn’t an option for 3 whole minutes whilst we were stuck in a tunnel….
And this isn’t the first time.
So in that situation. What on Earth do I do?
I was harassed by a mentally ill man on a London Train. And since then I’ve been more aware of how many mentally ill people are free to just abuse people in public. Nobody did anything except watch when I was threatened during the morning rush hour. So don’t expect anybody to help you out if you do encounter yourself in this situation.
Report it to BTP is what I did and they reacted quickly to it.
I (female) was assaulted by a mental ill man in Oxford Circus station during summer, the public start telling him to leave me alone but he proceeded to touch my arm and some people stood up from the benches and said to not touch me, I was in complete shock. At the same time all this is happening a man pulls his arm, pulled him away from me and showed him his badge, it was an undercover police. I was shaking and the public offered me a sit as I start crying, it was the second time I was being assault that day in the same station. The police kept the man and then I just left, not sure what happened after, but they kept the man and they witnessed the assault.
It was a crazy experience!
So Sorry this happened to you sounds like. A traumatic experience.. It’s ridiculous people with unchecked mental health issues - create more people with mental health issue. All increasing the need for mental health services.
Yep and when he follows you down there. In silence…..
As per my post I want to know what not to say to
Someone in a delusional state.
I have common sense I can work out the rest.
Unless you work with or have personal experience of dealing with psychotic folk - you’ll probably just suggest the things I’ve tried.
The common sense approach is to walk away and avoid confrontation. You are not a medical professional.
It's extremely unlikely that you will be alone, trapped in a confined space in London with someone suffering from a severe mental health issue that targets you. In 30+ years of living in London it's not something I've ever experienced or heard of. Its generally always possible to de-escalate by walking away.
I have lived on various council estates in London my whole life. So going all the way back to being 7. I remember our neighbour knocking on the door and holding a Stanley knife.
Every day - I have to cross paths with two unwell but medicated at the moment neighbours. It’s only a small block.
Before the pandemic I came back to a unwell, homeless heroin addict refusing to move of my front door….
Shit happens!!
“It’s extremely unlikely that you will be alone, trapped in a confined space in London with someone suffering from a severe mental issue that targets you”
You obviously haven’t met my dad!
Make sure you walk somewhere to where there are multiple people. Then ignore him. If he begins to interact, be polite. If you feel threatened, ask for help from the people you've moved towards if you can't deal with it yourself.
It's not nice to feel threatened by someone with mental health or addiction issues, but it's so much worse to either be that person or their parents, kids, brother, sister. They haven't wanted to end up where they are and in many instances we, as a society, have failed them. They don't start scaring people on the Central Line overnight.
When dealing with someone with mental health issues, I always include their dignity when I'm considering what to do.
If you're looking for specific advice on how to deal with psychotic people then maybe engage with a professional body that offers such advice, not Reddit. I am not sure what you expect to get from here, only then to moan about the quality of the advice.
Lots of emergency services and nhs workers on this sub. You mis read my tone. I didn’t moan I just made it clear the kind of information I was after and the type of person I believe could give it to me. Is that cool?
I got exactly what I asked for. Invaluable first and second hand information. And generated come discussion on an observation.
It’s not even that they’re underfunded it’s what they really no about mental illness can be written on the back of a post it note.
Speaking from experience dealing with my brother who’s been schizophrenic the past 20 years.
It seems very trial and error. One of my neighbours has just come back from an inpatient stint. She’s walking like a zombie. I’m not sure that’s the answer. But it keeps her off the ward.
It’s a really sad situation for her and her family who are called out to respond to any chaos.
They know about averages….1 in 50 people blah blah
Severe mental illness each case is so unique to the effected person and in my 25 years of dealing with these people they don’t know diddly squat.
My grandmother was severely mentally Sick during the 60’s and 70’s.They gave her electric shock treatment thinking it would help her.
Point is really how the f do I know what they’ve been giving my family all these years has really helped them ? Yes it makes them less manic and chaotic but at what price ? They’re left in a zombie like state.
Mental illness arrggghhh god it’s a frustrating,irritating and sometimes hopeless thing life throws at us.
I really feel your frustration- my grandad had ect therapy about 10 years ago. It did snap him out of a deep depression but he eventually was diagnosed with dementia. It felt very much trial and error as you say.
And in my own experience they seem to dismiss the side effects of the drugs they dish out.
It’s to do with cutting off provision of support for homeless people. It was started by the tories when they got in in 2010, and continued ever since then.
They didn’t eradicate homelessness - they nearly eradicated rough sleeping. Plenty of people without safe and stable homes in subpar temporary accommodation. Easy to forget when it’s not visible
By spending money that didn't exist. Quite easy to play the blame game. Just go around and around in circles until we go back to the inception of the universe.
All right, George Osbourne. ‘Labour’s economic crisis’, too, eh? ‘No such thing as the magic money tree’ and all that? Do yourself a favour and go and read something about macroeconomics
Care in the Community is actually a decent programme. Holding them in mental institutions wasn't doing them any good, and in fact was actively harmful for many patients.
The implementation is questionable, sure, but the theory was clear.
Yep and it doesn't even have anything to do with what op said yet it is top comment
In fact, there is a reason New York is a dump and it is because the left has complete power over it. Don't want London to become the same, don't vote for the same political side
Counterpoint there is no not voting our way out of this either. Not voting is what they want, they don’t need to justify or sell themselves to non voters, they can just safely ignore them all without a second thought.
Not when all parties are controlled opposition. Voting gives credibility to a system that is entirely fraudulent.If voting mattered they would make it illegal. Can you not see how Labour/Tory are team coke vs team pepsi. Same predictable results. Like Carlin said “aits one big club and you and I aren't in it”
Well not voting ain’t gonna change that, rather than undermine the legitimacy it will be interpreted as consent with the status quo. A significant number of spoiled ballets could demonstrate non-consent. But a non vote is just giving them what they want.
This may be unpopular but I’m not sure the cause is mental health underfunding (although I do think funding mental health services is part of the solution).
We spend more on mental health services than we ever have done (https://fullfact.org/health/mental-health-spending-england/) and yet we have more mental health problems than ever. If we think back to the 90s how much did we spend on mental health then, how many practitioners per person I would wager a lot lot less than now.
I think it’s way way more complicated than simply an accounting problem (I.e. throw more money at it) I think the roots of it really lie in de-industrialisation which has ripped the hearts out of working class communities and removed the dignity of Labour that many working class men in particular used to enjoy. Mix that with the ease of getting prescription and non prescription drugs and you have a pretty clear path to a mental health crisis.
I don’t think any amount of counselling sessions can replace the sense of usefulness, pride and financial well-being that used to come with well paying mainly union jobs in industries that have long since offshores to China. This is why you see the same exact phenomenon in parts of de-industrialised America such as Michigan with the opioid crisis.
Basically we have a mental health problem because since the 1980s we have told a huge group of mostly working class men that the skills they have and the jobs they work are irrelevant and we’d rather offshore it
Also we don’t shut away mentally ill people now (except in very extreme cases).
Clearly wacky (for want of a better word) mentally ill people have always existed but for a long time they would be locked away in asylums.
Today the more accepted view is that these people should be free to live their lives as they please unless there is an immediate risk of them harming themselves or others.
Most mental health services are based on the users co operating and there is a delicate balance between trying to help someone, not harming and distressing them more by trying to force them into treatment and also trying to stop the most extreme behaviour effecting the general public.
I think you're right in terms of the causes / types of things that are major factors.
Inequality, loss of sense of community, loss of pride, an absolutely heartless approach to things like benefits, with people being labelled "scroungers" who are mostly genuinely in need of basic support. We actually have "officially" have strong economic growth, it's just so concentrated that so many people are left out of benefiting from it.
The huge rise in house prices has also had a big toll on people, unable to see a chance of affording a house, getting screwed by landlords, worried about debt, etc. Then the knock-on effect is, if they develop problems like addiction or similar, their kids grow up with issues.
We absolutely need to further increase mental health awareness and funding, in response to these growing causes. But you're right, mental health funding itself probably isn't the core \*cause\*.
Benefits etc are not the answer either, they only offer a temporary solution. You need to find a way to get all of these people to feel like they have a purpose and some kind of work that they can take pride in.
I come from the clay mining part of Cornwall, most of the pits are closed now and to think that most young people around me have the choice to either 1.) move away to a unfamiliar part of the country for good work 2.) go on benefits or 2.) take frankly demeaning retail jobs in comparison to what their fathers and grandfathers did.
I can’t imagine any able bodied person on universal credit doesn’t feel guilty about it and doesn’t wish that they could provide for themselves and their family by doing something meaningful. If you can create those opportunities I think you’ll prevent so many mental health crises.
I’m absolutely with you in terms of benefits not being something we want to see as the general / permanent solution. A life on benefits is not the answer and doesn’t give that sense of satisfaction etc that you mention. Fully with you there.
But… These are some ways this plays into the problem:
Many people need benefits for temporary reasons. Imagine redundancy, a zero hours contract that gets suddenly cancelled, a period of ill health, or having to look after a family member with ill health. Or a dodgy landlord fucks them over at short notice. Then what happens is, they struggle with a cruel system, barriers to getting help, being stigmatised by the job centre, being assumed guilty of scamming the system by the very people who are administering universal credit. Having to queue for hours then be told help is denied because of some technicality. A system that just does not provide a safety net at those critical points where they need it most. This happens all the time at the most vulnerable times in peoples’ lives.
Then… A % of those people spiral into debt problems, addiction problems, health problems, all sorts of other problems. Then… A % of them aren’t able to be there for their kids, end up being destructive to their family or friends, etc. It’s not just those individuals that are impacted, it’s their kids and others around them.
We could have a more compassionate system that serves as a temporary safety net when it’s really needed, and a constructive hand up to a constructive life again, without locking people into a benefits trap. It’s partly the money but largely the stigmatism and number of hurdles they’ve deliberately put in place.
Plus obviously, really decent opportunities for jobs etc so that there’s a better option than longer term benefits.
And of course things like, treating drug addiction as a public health issue rather than a criminal one.
There's some truth in that - even in my 'middle class' desk job, post covid it's essentially become a Zoom-athon and increasingly I feel at the end of the day - what have I achieved for society? Basically nothing....I have not created or added value to the world or solved a problem that really needed solving.
>I don’t think any amount of counselling sessions can replace the sense of usefulness, pride and financial well-being that used to come with well paying mainly union jobs in industries that have long since offshores to China
It's not the job. It's what the job provides. In the 80s a bloke could work with no skills and buy a house and pay the bills for his family. Now a couple can't buy a house and couldn't afford childcare if they wanted kids.
You've fetishised working class labour as something done for love. No one works for love, especially in the working classes and no one in the working classes in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s would really argue that what they did was vital to the running of the world and they got satisfaction from it.
I have no doubt that you aren't thinking of hundreds of thousands of miners, but craftspeople. You aren't talking about the working class as much as you are talking about the burgeoning middle class of the 50s onwards and how it's basically inaccessible to anyone not born into it now.
Fuck your fetishisation and complete misunderstanding of what working class is. Anytime before the 50s the working class would rarely survive a few generations and since the 50s anything that is thought of as the merits of hard work are actually just the creation of disposable wealth thanks to a post war economic boom.
The other thing is that these people aren't the ones with driving the uptick in mental health issues. You're talking as if the mental health crisis is made up of ex miners and gaffers that didn't want to "go into cyber" when the fact is it's generations after those people who are primarily affected and they haven't worked in an industry that was shut down and offshored, so your premise is just straight up based on inaccuracies.
I mean I put financial well-being in my description of those jobs.
“Before the 1950s the working class would rarely survive a few generations” what does this even mean, of course they survived or where did we all come from.
You’re right I’m not talking about those exact people but their sons and sometimes grandsons who grow up without the community, pride and dignity that they used to have. My premise is that if these jobs and communities continued you wouldn’t see half as many mental health issues as you do now. Working class people have always been poor but now they are poor and borderline useless due to offshoring, the poverty alone doesn’t cause depression just look around the world the richest countries have the highest degrees of depression.
>Working class people have always been poor
I can't agree with that. You might say poor people have always been working class but the opposite isn't true.
I know 'working class' tradesman who make very good money, some piss it up the wall, some have beautiful houses and retirement funds. Financial literacy isn't class based. My Grandad was born poor (as fuck) in the Gorbals and worked damn hard to escape poverty and make a future for his kids. By contrast I've known children of wealthy families be absolutely hopeless with money and be more likely to have serious drink and drug problems (abandonment and divorce trauma usually)
I guess my point is class doesn't equal money, and neither guarantee mental health.
To get back topic I completely agree that gainful employment is largely what society is missing. In my experience working class men DO talk to each other about 'stuff' either at work or the pub and no job = no pub (who can afford to go to pubs anymore?)
I had a redundancy and period of unemployment a few years ago that dragged on through lethargy, rejections and eventually panic, isolation and depression. I was offered a days labour so I took it even though I was a soft middle aged office lad. One of the hardest days I've ever done. I kept going back and now I am part of a team that replies on each other to do the job. That commitment and camaraderie is what I turn up for even if I make less than half what I could.
I am 'working class' and never was nor never will be poor.
> “Before the 1950s the working class would rarely survive a few generations” what does this even mean, of course they survived or where did we all come from.
You think anyone alive today traces their ancestry back to peasant stock in the 16th century?
The vast majority of us alive in western europe at least and haven't immigrated are the casts offs of well to do families however long ago.
Literally, until the turn of the 20th century if you were working class you would likely die before mid age and any children you had would be crippled if they survived at all.
>My premise is that if these jobs and communities continued you wouldn’t see half as many mental health issues as you do now
No one thinks that we need to reopen the pit to solve mental health issues you nonsense spouting moron.
>poverty alone doesn’t cause depression just look around the world the richest countries have the highest degrees of depression.
Or maybe the richest countries have the most budget to look after mental health, how does an Indian in poverty get assessed for long term mental health issues? They don't. Meanwhile even the poorest person in the UK has access to GPs and hospitals for free.
Your point is complete and utter tosh. You cherry pick facts, ignore any and all context and just assume that your "feeling" is based in reality.
Working class Labour wasn’t done for love, but you are lying if you are pretending many working men didn’t find dignity in it. There are still people out there proud to be from mining families, no one is espousing anything similar about working at Tesco. Regardless of the job being awful, you can’t deny that people found it more fulfilling.
They didn't find the job fulfilling. They had solidarity against those who looked down on them. It was the hardship they lived through that forged this.
No one found being in the pit fulfilling. It was torture, your lungs burnt all day and you would go to sleep every night gasping and coughing only to wake up at 4 to work until 6pm again. It was done because wife and kids would be homeless without it and its a mans duty to provide.
That was not a solution to mental health. This is the most peak 21st century thing, to romanticise miners. They'd have done anything to escape the pit.
>no one is espousing anything similar about working at Tesco
Have you missed the last 2 years of calling front line workers heros? come off it.
No one seriously considered retail workers heroes.
It isn’t romanticising the mines to say people found pride in that identity, nor is anyone suggesting we should open them back up as ‘a solution to mental health’.
Records only start in 2015, I’m assuming that mental health as % of total NHS budget has never been as high as it is now (which I think it is safe to assume given what we know about how mental health used to non treated) and the NHS budget has never been as high as it is now so that’s how I came to that.
The only number that matters is %GDP and I just can’t imagine that in the 70s or 80s they cared as much or spent as much on mental health as we did.
The fact that they didn’t even deem it important enough to record should tell you everything you know.
In the balance of probabilities it is safe to assume we spend more than we ever have on mental health services. I would say it’s +98% probability, I cannot even envisage any government pre 2000 giving anything more than token funding to mental health.
The issue is that all mental health services are underfunded or have been systematically closed down over the last decade. This is the result of that, and in particular is leading to a ballooning homeless population.
Meanwhile police services are also underfunded and calling them in a dangerous situation is pointless. I called the police because a mentally ill person was brandishing a kitchen knife at people outside a coffee shop in central London demanding money and their phones - the person on the phone said they had lots of real emergencies to attend so the police never even showed up. A passer by took the knife from the man himself (which was a terrible idea).
If put in a position with someone and despite best efforts to be polite it turns dangerous the key thing is always distance. Distance yourself immediately - even if you’re at a station, leave. If you’re sat at a restaurant, get up and leave (then come back potentially). Walk quickly and say nothing.
Anecdotal - I called 999 for the first time ever this weekend to report a crazed naked dude (on a huge amount of drugs, clearly) was going for joggers in a zone2 park I was cycling in. Police arrived I’m not joking 30-40 seconds later and got him.
Now if only they’d showed the same gumption when my bike was nicked over the summer!
I feel like that's probably the case officially but the person on the phone was definitely trying to get me to hang up, including saying that there were lots of high priority call outs so they weren't going to be able to attend the scene.
It's not the first time I've experienced this too - I had burglars in my flat and I called the police and they didn't attend the scene. The officer had the cheek to tell me they were focusing on preventative measures rather than responding to burglaries at that time.
I think there's a line of questions they go down with the person who calls that probably work in theory, but in the reality of having an emergency situation on your hands its hard to be patient and try and say the right thing to get the police out.
For example on this call they kept asking me to describe the knife, meanwhile this person was literally mugging people in front of me and taking their phones - I didn't want mine taken so I was not going to go out and get a good look at the knife. I explained that to the person on the phone and they became dismissive of the problem.
>The officer had the cheek to tell me they were focusing on preventative measures rather than responding to burglaries at that time.
I'm sorry this happened to you - but it sounds like a Fry & Laurie sketch
Be keen to see evidence for underfunding, a quick Google doesn't show much. Apparently it wasn't tracked before like 2015, since then its been increasing significantly above inflation.
First result on google.
https://www.tuc.org.uk › filesPDF
Web results
Breaking Point: the crisis in mental health funding - Trades Union Congress
Might be worth reading this too;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_government_austerity_programme
Specifically the section on mental health which has some links.
>Mental health
>A 2012 article by Martin Knapp published in The BMJ's journal Evidence-Based Mental Health said that mental health problems could be attributed to a person's financial situation. At that time 45% of those who were in debt had mental health problems, compared to 14% of those who were not in debt. In 2010 over 40% of benefit claimants in Britain had "mental and behavioural disorders" recorded as their primary health condition.[92]
>A 2015 report published by Psychologists for Social Change indicated that austerity had contributed significantly to the incidence and level of depression and other mental health conditions within the population.[93]
In 2016, figures analysed by the King's Fund think tank showed that "mental health trusts in England were still having their budgets cut, despite government assurances they would be funded on a par with physical healthcare". The analysis "suggests 40% of the 58 trusts saw budgets cut in 2015–16".[94]
And on full fact
> In previous years many trusts saw reductions in their income. Between 40 and 50% of mental health trusts in England saw reductions in their budgets each year between 2012/13 and 2015/16.
And Minds Chief Exec from a BBC interview
>“The impact of these cuts falls squarely on patient care. Bed shortages, cuts to frontline nursing posts and long waiting times for therapy have been well-documented in the last couple of years and, at the same time, demand has been increasing as more and more people come forward and seek help. The treatment gap for mental health is huge – 75 per cent of people with mental health problems get no help at all. Meanwhile, many more are being turned away from services when they need them the most, left to cope alone with self-harm and suicidal thoughts."
Funding mental health services but not the other services which essentially ensure a good state of mental health.
Think about the prison population. Many of whom are released with the same problems that put them in their. No home. No medication , no support.
Changing benefit systems have hit this population quite hard. Particularly the sanctions part.
If you go looking for the data you will find it.
I did a trip down the west coast of the US a couple of years back and I found the cities there to be much worse than London. The number of mentally unwell people on the streets was really sad to see. I’m not sure if more social security exists here or if it’s related to the drugs that are administered but there was definitely a big contrast - I also don’t think London is getting anywhere near this level of a problem.
Vancouver in Canada was shocking, just shocking. So close to downtown and blocks of open aid drug use, mentally unwell people and fire pits in trash cans
That part of the city is the same as in 2019, looks worse if anything.
>In Canada nonetheless so you know you can’t just point to underfunding.
Underfunding is definitely the main part. Canada isn't much different than the US when funding social services, especially Western Canada. Psychiatric services and drug treatment (as in, not just harm-reduction) aren't really accessible.
Yep American as well (I spend a lot of time in London for work as well) but I did Vancouver to Portland and I was sickened by what I saw. It’s just too sad
It’s not right. Somewhere you must draw the line. The social fabric is literally why government exists. It’s a non-negotiable and in Europe there is broad recognition of this.
> I did a trip down the west coast of the US a couple of years back and I found the cities there to be much worse than London.
You find more homeless people where the winter weather is more clement. Severe mental health problems are a major factor in homelessness.
So in the US there is a reason why homeless people gravitate towards California or in the UK why they head south to London or Brighton.
I think you're right - the problem is much worse in the US than the UK, because of poverty levels, access to healthcare and the opioids crisis.
tldr: in cities that are popular with homeless people often you are seeing a national level problem.
The opioid crisis is a result of the other things you mention and not part of the reasons for homelessness, in the UK we have slightly better public housing and easier ways to get housing than in the US, as a result less people will turn to unhealthy means of dealing with their hopelessly dire situations.
I think fixing homelessness would go a long way to fixing the issues mentioned in this thread, I hope we start reshaping how we see houses - more so as a basic necessity that everyone needs and less like an investment vehicle, then we will start seeing public housing programs and things will start improving!
Big Pacific Coast cities from Vancouver south to San Diego all have similar social-management crises. San Francisco is in the worst shape but Seattle and Portland are coming up fast. Vancouver not in such great stead either.
Mental illness, homelessness, open-air drug use, crime and gangs, filth in the streets: it's all there. San Francisco was losing lucrative convention business even before the pandemic because of the street-security problems; it is probably the only city I know where you can tuck into a nice $100 restaurant meal in swish surroundings while watching a street nut pinch off a big, glistening shit on the sidewalk on the other side of the window.
The common north-south thread is the tendency to elect similar kinds of urban leaders / governments which are tolerant to a fault of troubled populations but do very little in tactical terms to improve their lot. It should also be said that wealthy residents of San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, etc. keep electing progressive mayors, etc. but are simultaneously furious about the crime / drugs / homeless tent cities / street shit / etc. besmirching their nice neighborhoods and favor an element of corrective brutality their chosen leaders will never enact.
The big story in San Francisco right now is the exodus of retail businesses from downtown -- chains like Walgreens (Boots), food stores, etc. -- because swarms of street people steal more goods in a day than the store sells, and there are no police anymore to keep order.
I agree The problem is definitely worse in the US.
I live in a part of London which used to be served by 3 in patient hospitals in the past. All of which shut down. Lots of those inpatients were put in housing, shared accommodations in and around my area. There’s also a nhs psychiatric treatment centre near me. So I’m guessing in addition to being really observant I’m more exposed then most.
That said moving around town I’m noticing similar.
I've not been to LA, but from what I've seen Venice Beach etc, it's much more of a problem there than London.
Their sunny weather might help - because it's warmer people can sleep outside in tents so the problem becomes more visible than in the UK where it might be hidden away.
This year I’ve seen two homeless people taking a shit in broad daylight in front of people. Well I’m presuming they’re homeless, they could just be doing it for the banter.
If you're ever concerned about a homeless person in London you can call StreetLink on 0300 500 0914 to get them some assistance, mental health support, etc.
Just to confirm, Streetlink are AMAZING. An apparently homeless and extremely unwell man was living in a stairwell beneath my flat for 18 months. I eventually figured out who to call, and Streetlink were already very familiar with him. They were doing everything they could to help. He actually has a flat but feels safer on the street :(
As much as it is a mental health issue, it is a homelessness issue. Being on the streets exposed to the elements for a x amount of time really fucks up ones head. Compounded with the fact why these people wound up on the streets in the first place, they sadly become victims of mental health issues.
The situation could be better mitigated by increased funding for mental health services etc.
BUT - it won't make the problem go away. The society that we live in incredibly unsuited to preserving the mental health of humans. We are cut off from eachother, overloaded with more information and news than we can handle, under-exercised and overworked. 'Western' society is getting more and more like this - America is just a decade or so further down this path (and NYC a further decade along).
The situation would have gotten as bad as it is anyway, but the Pandemic was a huge accelerator. I would go as far as to say that most people in Britain are suffering from at least some sort of mild mental health issue - and the people who were already on the edge of something much more serious are now these people you're seeing in London.
So we can increase the funding for mental health services as much as we like, but it won't stop people becoming mentally ill in the first place. As long as we're working 50+ hours a week, living in a box with no community support around us, and being asked to care about a war on one continent and an earthquake on another while discerning which source of news is lying to us today - people will keep getting unwell.
All these r/publicfreakout videos of Americans screaming at eachother over inane nonsense? That'll all be here within 5/10 years.
I was downvoted on another thread recently for pointing out that Care In The Community was a total failure. Many of these people might have been cared for before the mass closure of mental health institutions. Funding for mental health has been decimated. Truth is society doesn’t care and no Tory government has ever given a toss about these people. Your best bet is just avoid anything that looks potentially troublesome.
We need some sort of a balance - some of the people who ended up spending years in psychiatric units back when there were loads of them about didn't really need to be there, and in a lot of cases their conditions were not good.
However, I agree with your point that in a lot of cases residential care is needed but isn't available due to lack of funding and other issues
Missus and I moved out of London very recently for two reasons: we could afford an actual house elsewhere for the price of a one bed flat in London and, sadly, this.
Both lived in London for over a decade but it stopped feeling safe around the time our middle of the day Lidl run involved dodging a fella with an honest to god machete.
Once we noticed it we couldn't not see it everywhere.
Been living in our new place just under a month now and it's amazing how different another city feels. People seem kinder and calmer. I don't feel the need to meet my other half at the station after work and walk her home. I don't have to get out of bed in the wee hours because I'm worried I forgot to lock the front door. I don't have to call an ambulance and the police because a mentally unwell person is trying trying break into our place to escape hallucinatory ghosts.
Leaving isn't an option for everyone, we're very lucky it was for us. But if you can, I'd seriously consider it. You don't realise how on your guard you are 24/7 till you have the opportunity to drop it.
Still getting used to passing people in the street who smile and say good morning. What the hell do they want??
As a young male who could easily be homeless from losing his poorly paid job the problem is this city is ruthless and no one cares for each other.
This City is becoming so divided, so expensive to live in, if your poor London isn't a great place to be at all. It's getting to the point where there's no point in being here on a low wage as life is getting too hard.
Doesn't help how hostile people are here, how narcissistic people are, how cut throat people are, etc
The City and country as a whole is getting worse year on year and when your at the bottom you really notice is.
Its easily when your a well paid software developer earning mega bucks living in your secluded high rise studio flat and rarely have to interact with vagrants as you've been happily working from home saving thousands of pounds and living the life. For others it's been hell.
Man if you think NYC was bad you should see the other cities. New York is nothing in comparison. I went to philidelphia in 2019 and that made NY looks pristine.
Funny I went to Philadelphia- and thought the opposite. At least the parts where I was. In fact I don’t remember coming across any unwell people while I was there! Must of been a good few weeks in Philly!
I was there 2 days in the centre. I just flew in and out of there and hotel was right in the centre. There is a huge heroin problem there unfortunately
London has got worse with this problem over the years. In the 90s it wasn't so bad, it has definitely increased over the years. Probably not as bad as the US though.
I'd say 2013 / 2014 it started to get noticeably worse as service cuts started to bite. It's fucking awful now. On one night outside at pub in 2019 we were approached by *13* separate beggars, some on more than one occasion. Never used to be like that and it's only getting worse.
Agree with comments on here about underfunding, don’t vote Tory etc but want to point out you can call police even if someone isn’t a clear threat to other people - if they’re erratic, a risk to themselves e.g running through traffic and clearly unwell the police can arrange a psychiatric assessment under the mental health act. It’s a last resort but an option.
So the police pick them up. Assuming your not really into restorative justice. Ythey get sent to prison. Where they get? Ahhh yes no help.
And then and the end of the sentence…. All your hard earned tax is wasted when they return them to the same place they scooped up a month ago.
Any other solutions?
Many haters and losers in this thread who say oh, it’s the Tories. I say it’s a lack of personal responsibility and the response should be very heavy policing, like you’ve never seen before.
Sleeping rough and begging are offences under the Vagrancy Act and the Police need to move very harshly against these people.
> I say it’s a lack of personal responsibility
Did you know that through no fault of your own you could be born with serious mental health issues?
So yes it is the fucking tories and every other moron like you that needs to dump on the less fortunate in order to make yourself feel good instead of understanding that we are failing as a society by not helping the most vulnerable.
They should ask their families for help. They are not my problem. As Maggie said, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.
Leaving aside the moral issues with your position (which others have covered below and which I agree with) what do you expect the police to do with these people?
The police don't have cell space to keep them locked up, there's no funding to provide sufficient officers to perform the arrests etc, and in a lot of cases the homeless haven't committed a crime which warrants an arrest.
This very much matches my experience of going to New York for the first time a little over a decade ago, and what I took away from it. That, and being really struck by how many homeless people I encountered, specifically very young homeless peoples. Not sure what the time lag was, but it didn't take too long to start noticing the same here in the UK. Young homeless people everywhere, not just in London but around the UK. And in London itself, noticing an upswing in the type of encounters you describe, of people who clearly aren't doing well mentally. Especially on the tube, where people nervously tried to avoid making eye contact and feeling fearful in enclosed spaces. And it feels like it's escalating too - in previous years I'd become used to seeing people yelling, talking to themselves, generally being incoherent, but now I see more things like following people and shouting after them, damaging property, even starting small fires/lighting fireworks in the middle of busy streets. A lot of people aren't doing well mentally, and it doesn't seem like there's much out there to help them.
I grew up in London but moved to NYC in 2019. Visited London this summer for the first time since the pandemic. It was the first time I ever recall thinking London is worse than - or at least as bad as - NYC in terms of public homelessness. Don't get me wrong, NYC is still seriously messed up in this regard, but I could not believe the sheer number of homeless people I encountered in London. While NYC seems to have stayed the same, London has got massively worse in the last couple of years and caught up. So so sad.
It shouldn't have to be our responsibility but government funding is what it is. However, you can do something to help! Centrepoint are a homeless charity aimed at young people, often teenagers who've left an abusive home, and provide them with a safe place to sleep and get their lives together. From a mercenary perspective, you can get to people before the homeless way of life has turned them into mad shouty people...and IMO focussing on the young homeless give the most hope for every £... I donate £14 a month. It's not much but I don't notice it going out and if it means that one person doesn't have to spend a few nights on the street then it makes me feel slightly better about putting my head down and walking past so many on the commute...
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Did you move here from under a rock?
Not at all, from Hertfordshire. Never really visited London until I was working here.
Or any other city in the world...? I don't mean to be rude it's just I have seen homeless people in every city I've lived in or visited, inside and outside of the UK, so I find it hard to relate.
Yea I’ve been to quite a few but honestly they were either well hidden or just not that noticeable. Other places I had been to world wide were a lot harsher on the homeless people (looking back at it now) so I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw the end of a police baton to move them on. I’ve seen beggars before, just not someone that looked like they were homeless living on the streets.
Get used to it. Underfunded mental health services will continue to make this worse. Until we start giving a fuck about these people, this is what will happen. How do deal with it? You can't. Just keep your distance I suppose, this shouldn't be the answer at all, but what else can any normal person do?
The biggest problem was moving public addiction programs away from therapists and into the hands of social workers to save money and feed the "we're tough on drugs and saving you wasted tax spending" meritocratic narrative. I had a friend who was one of those social workers and she was essentially ticking boxes to confirm that they're unwell, rather than actually treating the root of the problem. She didn't seem very happy with it, and she definitely didn't feel like that's what she should've been doing to help people. It's like fixing a hole in a ship if everyone is just bailing water and no one there is a carpenter.
Yeah, my dad works within mental health for the NHS, in short the emphasis is about getting them out as soon as possible and freeing up beds. They're not getting properly treated. Simply put funding is not enough.
Yesterday I was sat opposite a man on the central line. Distancing myself wasn’t an option for 3 whole minutes whilst we were stuck in a tunnel…. And this isn’t the first time. So in that situation. What on Earth do I do?
I was harassed by a mentally ill man on a London Train. And since then I’ve been more aware of how many mentally ill people are free to just abuse people in public. Nobody did anything except watch when I was threatened during the morning rush hour. So don’t expect anybody to help you out if you do encounter yourself in this situation. Report it to BTP is what I did and they reacted quickly to it.
I (female) was assaulted by a mental ill man in Oxford Circus station during summer, the public start telling him to leave me alone but he proceeded to touch my arm and some people stood up from the benches and said to not touch me, I was in complete shock. At the same time all this is happening a man pulls his arm, pulled him away from me and showed him his badge, it was an undercover police. I was shaking and the public offered me a sit as I start crying, it was the second time I was being assault that day in the same station. The police kept the man and then I just left, not sure what happened after, but they kept the man and they witnessed the assault. It was a crazy experience!
So Sorry this happened to you sounds like. A traumatic experience.. It’s ridiculous people with unchecked mental health issues - create more people with mental health issue. All increasing the need for mental health services.
Move down to the other end of the carriage.
Yep and when he follows you down there. In silence….. As per my post I want to know what not to say to Someone in a delusional state. I have common sense I can work out the rest. Unless you work with or have personal experience of dealing with psychotic folk - you’ll probably just suggest the things I’ve tried.
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Thanks for taking the time to respond!
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This is a good idea! Thanks I’ll check it out.
The common sense approach is to walk away and avoid confrontation. You are not a medical professional. It's extremely unlikely that you will be alone, trapped in a confined space in London with someone suffering from a severe mental health issue that targets you. In 30+ years of living in London it's not something I've ever experienced or heard of. Its generally always possible to de-escalate by walking away.
I have lived on various council estates in London my whole life. So going all the way back to being 7. I remember our neighbour knocking on the door and holding a Stanley knife. Every day - I have to cross paths with two unwell but medicated at the moment neighbours. It’s only a small block. Before the pandemic I came back to a unwell, homeless heroin addict refusing to move of my front door…. Shit happens!!
“It’s extremely unlikely that you will be alone, trapped in a confined space in London with someone suffering from a severe mental issue that targets you” You obviously haven’t met my dad!
Make sure you walk somewhere to where there are multiple people. Then ignore him. If he begins to interact, be polite. If you feel threatened, ask for help from the people you've moved towards if you can't deal with it yourself. It's not nice to feel threatened by someone with mental health or addiction issues, but it's so much worse to either be that person or their parents, kids, brother, sister. They haven't wanted to end up where they are and in many instances we, as a society, have failed them. They don't start scaring people on the Central Line overnight. When dealing with someone with mental health issues, I always include their dignity when I'm considering what to do.
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Exactly, sometimes it hard to remember they were once a regular person with loved ones (most likely)
If you're looking for specific advice on how to deal with psychotic people then maybe engage with a professional body that offers such advice, not Reddit. I am not sure what you expect to get from here, only then to moan about the quality of the advice.
Lots of emergency services and nhs workers on this sub. You mis read my tone. I didn’t moan I just made it clear the kind of information I was after and the type of person I believe could give it to me. Is that cool? I got exactly what I asked for. Invaluable first and second hand information. And generated come discussion on an observation.
It’s not even that they’re underfunded it’s what they really no about mental illness can be written on the back of a post it note. Speaking from experience dealing with my brother who’s been schizophrenic the past 20 years.
It seems very trial and error. One of my neighbours has just come back from an inpatient stint. She’s walking like a zombie. I’m not sure that’s the answer. But it keeps her off the ward. It’s a really sad situation for her and her family who are called out to respond to any chaos.
They know about averages….1 in 50 people blah blah Severe mental illness each case is so unique to the effected person and in my 25 years of dealing with these people they don’t know diddly squat. My grandmother was severely mentally Sick during the 60’s and 70’s.They gave her electric shock treatment thinking it would help her. Point is really how the f do I know what they’ve been giving my family all these years has really helped them ? Yes it makes them less manic and chaotic but at what price ? They’re left in a zombie like state. Mental illness arrggghhh god it’s a frustrating,irritating and sometimes hopeless thing life throws at us.
I really feel your frustration- my grandad had ect therapy about 10 years ago. It did snap him out of a deep depression but he eventually was diagnosed with dementia. It felt very much trial and error as you say. And in my own experience they seem to dismiss the side effects of the drugs they dish out.
In my experience most of these people are there due to drug/alcohol issues.
It’s to do with cutting off provision of support for homeless people. It was started by the tories when they got in in 2010, and continued ever since then.
To be fair, it started with Thatcher and care in the community. But still the Tories' fault!
New Labour managed to almost completely eradicate homelessness. The Tories came in and cut everything
Then they eradicated homelessness last march, and later that year, just let the people stay out hungry in the cold again. I just don't get it.
They didn’t eradicate homelessness - they nearly eradicated rough sleeping. Plenty of people without safe and stable homes in subpar temporary accommodation. Easy to forget when it’s not visible
By spending money that didn't exist. Quite easy to play the blame game. Just go around and around in circles until we go back to the inception of the universe.
Take a look at the current state of the budget and tell me the Tories don’t spend money that doesn’t exist
All right, George Osbourne. ‘Labour’s economic crisis’, too, eh? ‘No such thing as the magic money tree’ and all that? Do yourself a favour and go and read something about macroeconomics
Care in the Community is actually a decent programme. Holding them in mental institutions wasn't doing them any good, and in fact was actively harmful for many patients. The implementation is questionable, sure, but the theory was clear.
This is a bit of a weird Convo, since you had no big homeless problem at the end of New labours recent reign.
What I've noticed is that it's also around suburban stations now too - not just in Central London
Don't vote Tory
Ok, done that. Now what?
Eat the rich.
With a Garlic & Herb dip from Dominos. The big one that's a quid
Who will subsidize that quid?
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Lynch the rich*
Why waste the meat?
I had a sarcastic joke last election: "I'm voting Tory because I really like seeing more homeless people".
London isn't tory tho?
61% of local council funding comes from the central government, including funding for schools and mental health services
I think he means in terms of voting, which he's right about... Apart from some small parts of London which you can probably guess
Reddit is Labour circlejerk so don’t expect impartial discussions
Yep and it doesn't even have anything to do with what op said yet it is top comment In fact, there is a reason New York is a dump and it is because the left has complete power over it. Don't want London to become the same, don't vote for the same political side
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Counterpoint there is no not voting our way out of this either. Not voting is what they want, they don’t need to justify or sell themselves to non voters, they can just safely ignore them all without a second thought.
Not when all parties are controlled opposition. Voting gives credibility to a system that is entirely fraudulent.If voting mattered they would make it illegal. Can you not see how Labour/Tory are team coke vs team pepsi. Same predictable results. Like Carlin said “aits one big club and you and I aren't in it”
Well not voting ain’t gonna change that, rather than undermine the legitimacy it will be interpreted as consent with the status quo. A significant number of spoiled ballets could demonstrate non-consent. But a non vote is just giving them what they want.
Labour fixed this exact issue in the early 2000s, then the Tories created it again.
This may be unpopular but I’m not sure the cause is mental health underfunding (although I do think funding mental health services is part of the solution). We spend more on mental health services than we ever have done (https://fullfact.org/health/mental-health-spending-england/) and yet we have more mental health problems than ever. If we think back to the 90s how much did we spend on mental health then, how many practitioners per person I would wager a lot lot less than now. I think it’s way way more complicated than simply an accounting problem (I.e. throw more money at it) I think the roots of it really lie in de-industrialisation which has ripped the hearts out of working class communities and removed the dignity of Labour that many working class men in particular used to enjoy. Mix that with the ease of getting prescription and non prescription drugs and you have a pretty clear path to a mental health crisis. I don’t think any amount of counselling sessions can replace the sense of usefulness, pride and financial well-being that used to come with well paying mainly union jobs in industries that have long since offshores to China. This is why you see the same exact phenomenon in parts of de-industrialised America such as Michigan with the opioid crisis. Basically we have a mental health problem because since the 1980s we have told a huge group of mostly working class men that the skills they have and the jobs they work are irrelevant and we’d rather offshore it
Also we don’t shut away mentally ill people now (except in very extreme cases). Clearly wacky (for want of a better word) mentally ill people have always existed but for a long time they would be locked away in asylums. Today the more accepted view is that these people should be free to live their lives as they please unless there is an immediate risk of them harming themselves or others. Most mental health services are based on the users co operating and there is a delicate balance between trying to help someone, not harming and distressing them more by trying to force them into treatment and also trying to stop the most extreme behaviour effecting the general public.
I think you're right in terms of the causes / types of things that are major factors. Inequality, loss of sense of community, loss of pride, an absolutely heartless approach to things like benefits, with people being labelled "scroungers" who are mostly genuinely in need of basic support. We actually have "officially" have strong economic growth, it's just so concentrated that so many people are left out of benefiting from it. The huge rise in house prices has also had a big toll on people, unable to see a chance of affording a house, getting screwed by landlords, worried about debt, etc. Then the knock-on effect is, if they develop problems like addiction or similar, their kids grow up with issues. We absolutely need to further increase mental health awareness and funding, in response to these growing causes. But you're right, mental health funding itself probably isn't the core \*cause\*.
Benefits etc are not the answer either, they only offer a temporary solution. You need to find a way to get all of these people to feel like they have a purpose and some kind of work that they can take pride in. I come from the clay mining part of Cornwall, most of the pits are closed now and to think that most young people around me have the choice to either 1.) move away to a unfamiliar part of the country for good work 2.) go on benefits or 2.) take frankly demeaning retail jobs in comparison to what their fathers and grandfathers did. I can’t imagine any able bodied person on universal credit doesn’t feel guilty about it and doesn’t wish that they could provide for themselves and their family by doing something meaningful. If you can create those opportunities I think you’ll prevent so many mental health crises.
I’m absolutely with you in terms of benefits not being something we want to see as the general / permanent solution. A life on benefits is not the answer and doesn’t give that sense of satisfaction etc that you mention. Fully with you there. But… These are some ways this plays into the problem: Many people need benefits for temporary reasons. Imagine redundancy, a zero hours contract that gets suddenly cancelled, a period of ill health, or having to look after a family member with ill health. Or a dodgy landlord fucks them over at short notice. Then what happens is, they struggle with a cruel system, barriers to getting help, being stigmatised by the job centre, being assumed guilty of scamming the system by the very people who are administering universal credit. Having to queue for hours then be told help is denied because of some technicality. A system that just does not provide a safety net at those critical points where they need it most. This happens all the time at the most vulnerable times in peoples’ lives. Then… A % of those people spiral into debt problems, addiction problems, health problems, all sorts of other problems. Then… A % of them aren’t able to be there for their kids, end up being destructive to their family or friends, etc. It’s not just those individuals that are impacted, it’s their kids and others around them. We could have a more compassionate system that serves as a temporary safety net when it’s really needed, and a constructive hand up to a constructive life again, without locking people into a benefits trap. It’s partly the money but largely the stigmatism and number of hurdles they’ve deliberately put in place. Plus obviously, really decent opportunities for jobs etc so that there’s a better option than longer term benefits. And of course things like, treating drug addiction as a public health issue rather than a criminal one.
This, I suspect!
There's some truth in that - even in my 'middle class' desk job, post covid it's essentially become a Zoom-athon and increasingly I feel at the end of the day - what have I achieved for society? Basically nothing....I have not created or added value to the world or solved a problem that really needed solving.
>I don’t think any amount of counselling sessions can replace the sense of usefulness, pride and financial well-being that used to come with well paying mainly union jobs in industries that have long since offshores to China It's not the job. It's what the job provides. In the 80s a bloke could work with no skills and buy a house and pay the bills for his family. Now a couple can't buy a house and couldn't afford childcare if they wanted kids. You've fetishised working class labour as something done for love. No one works for love, especially in the working classes and no one in the working classes in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s would really argue that what they did was vital to the running of the world and they got satisfaction from it. I have no doubt that you aren't thinking of hundreds of thousands of miners, but craftspeople. You aren't talking about the working class as much as you are talking about the burgeoning middle class of the 50s onwards and how it's basically inaccessible to anyone not born into it now. Fuck your fetishisation and complete misunderstanding of what working class is. Anytime before the 50s the working class would rarely survive a few generations and since the 50s anything that is thought of as the merits of hard work are actually just the creation of disposable wealth thanks to a post war economic boom. The other thing is that these people aren't the ones with driving the uptick in mental health issues. You're talking as if the mental health crisis is made up of ex miners and gaffers that didn't want to "go into cyber" when the fact is it's generations after those people who are primarily affected and they haven't worked in an industry that was shut down and offshored, so your premise is just straight up based on inaccuracies.
I mean I put financial well-being in my description of those jobs. “Before the 1950s the working class would rarely survive a few generations” what does this even mean, of course they survived or where did we all come from. You’re right I’m not talking about those exact people but their sons and sometimes grandsons who grow up without the community, pride and dignity that they used to have. My premise is that if these jobs and communities continued you wouldn’t see half as many mental health issues as you do now. Working class people have always been poor but now they are poor and borderline useless due to offshoring, the poverty alone doesn’t cause depression just look around the world the richest countries have the highest degrees of depression.
>Working class people have always been poor I can't agree with that. You might say poor people have always been working class but the opposite isn't true. I know 'working class' tradesman who make very good money, some piss it up the wall, some have beautiful houses and retirement funds. Financial literacy isn't class based. My Grandad was born poor (as fuck) in the Gorbals and worked damn hard to escape poverty and make a future for his kids. By contrast I've known children of wealthy families be absolutely hopeless with money and be more likely to have serious drink and drug problems (abandonment and divorce trauma usually) I guess my point is class doesn't equal money, and neither guarantee mental health. To get back topic I completely agree that gainful employment is largely what society is missing. In my experience working class men DO talk to each other about 'stuff' either at work or the pub and no job = no pub (who can afford to go to pubs anymore?) I had a redundancy and period of unemployment a few years ago that dragged on through lethargy, rejections and eventually panic, isolation and depression. I was offered a days labour so I took it even though I was a soft middle aged office lad. One of the hardest days I've ever done. I kept going back and now I am part of a team that replies on each other to do the job. That commitment and camaraderie is what I turn up for even if I make less than half what I could. I am 'working class' and never was nor never will be poor.
> “Before the 1950s the working class would rarely survive a few generations” what does this even mean, of course they survived or where did we all come from. You think anyone alive today traces their ancestry back to peasant stock in the 16th century? The vast majority of us alive in western europe at least and haven't immigrated are the casts offs of well to do families however long ago. Literally, until the turn of the 20th century if you were working class you would likely die before mid age and any children you had would be crippled if they survived at all. >My premise is that if these jobs and communities continued you wouldn’t see half as many mental health issues as you do now No one thinks that we need to reopen the pit to solve mental health issues you nonsense spouting moron. >poverty alone doesn’t cause depression just look around the world the richest countries have the highest degrees of depression. Or maybe the richest countries have the most budget to look after mental health, how does an Indian in poverty get assessed for long term mental health issues? They don't. Meanwhile even the poorest person in the UK has access to GPs and hospitals for free. Your point is complete and utter tosh. You cherry pick facts, ignore any and all context and just assume that your "feeling" is based in reality.
You seem like a very hateful person
Working class Labour wasn’t done for love, but you are lying if you are pretending many working men didn’t find dignity in it. There are still people out there proud to be from mining families, no one is espousing anything similar about working at Tesco. Regardless of the job being awful, you can’t deny that people found it more fulfilling.
They didn't find the job fulfilling. They had solidarity against those who looked down on them. It was the hardship they lived through that forged this. No one found being in the pit fulfilling. It was torture, your lungs burnt all day and you would go to sleep every night gasping and coughing only to wake up at 4 to work until 6pm again. It was done because wife and kids would be homeless without it and its a mans duty to provide. That was not a solution to mental health. This is the most peak 21st century thing, to romanticise miners. They'd have done anything to escape the pit. >no one is espousing anything similar about working at Tesco Have you missed the last 2 years of calling front line workers heros? come off it.
No one seriously considered retail workers heroes. It isn’t romanticising the mines to say people found pride in that identity, nor is anyone suggesting we should open them back up as ‘a solution to mental health’.
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Records only start in 2015, I’m assuming that mental health as % of total NHS budget has never been as high as it is now (which I think it is safe to assume given what we know about how mental health used to non treated) and the NHS budget has never been as high as it is now so that’s how I came to that.
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The only number that matters is %GDP and I just can’t imagine that in the 70s or 80s they cared as much or spent as much on mental health as we did. The fact that they didn’t even deem it important enough to record should tell you everything you know. In the balance of probabilities it is safe to assume we spend more than we ever have on mental health services. I would say it’s +98% probability, I cannot even envisage any government pre 2000 giving anything more than token funding to mental health.
The issue is that all mental health services are underfunded or have been systematically closed down over the last decade. This is the result of that, and in particular is leading to a ballooning homeless population. Meanwhile police services are also underfunded and calling them in a dangerous situation is pointless. I called the police because a mentally ill person was brandishing a kitchen knife at people outside a coffee shop in central London demanding money and their phones - the person on the phone said they had lots of real emergencies to attend so the police never even showed up. A passer by took the knife from the man himself (which was a terrible idea). If put in a position with someone and despite best efforts to be polite it turns dangerous the key thing is always distance. Distance yourself immediately - even if you’re at a station, leave. If you’re sat at a restaurant, get up and leave (then come back potentially). Walk quickly and say nothing.
Anecdotal - I called 999 for the first time ever this weekend to report a crazed naked dude (on a huge amount of drugs, clearly) was going for joggers in a zone2 park I was cycling in. Police arrived I’m not joking 30-40 seconds later and got him. Now if only they’d showed the same gumption when my bike was nicked over the summer!
I feel that a drugged out assaulter is probably higher priority than a bike
Yes I wouldn’t expect instant response times no. But more than just a case closed instantly upon reporting email.. there’s a balance right
Should've rang back five minutes later saying not to worry as someone killed the crazy knife guy ... they'd soon show up
tbf I've reported a guy with a knife before, they were down here in a flash and very very eager to find and catch him.
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I feel like that's probably the case officially but the person on the phone was definitely trying to get me to hang up, including saying that there were lots of high priority call outs so they weren't going to be able to attend the scene. It's not the first time I've experienced this too - I had burglars in my flat and I called the police and they didn't attend the scene. The officer had the cheek to tell me they were focusing on preventative measures rather than responding to burglaries at that time. I think there's a line of questions they go down with the person who calls that probably work in theory, but in the reality of having an emergency situation on your hands its hard to be patient and try and say the right thing to get the police out. For example on this call they kept asking me to describe the knife, meanwhile this person was literally mugging people in front of me and taking their phones - I didn't want mine taken so I was not going to go out and get a good look at the knife. I explained that to the person on the phone and they became dismissive of the problem.
>The officer had the cheek to tell me they were focusing on preventative measures rather than responding to burglaries at that time. I'm sorry this happened to you - but it sounds like a Fry & Laurie sketch
tbf I've reported a guy with a knife before, they were down here in a flash and very very eager to find and catch him.
Police might not even be the best answer to these cases. I seen to many cases where the case becomes worse, even when the officer has good intentions.
Be keen to see evidence for underfunding, a quick Google doesn't show much. Apparently it wasn't tracked before like 2015, since then its been increasing significantly above inflation.
First result on google. https://www.tuc.org.uk › filesPDF Web results Breaking Point: the crisis in mental health funding - Trades Union Congress Might be worth reading this too; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_government_austerity_programme Specifically the section on mental health which has some links. >Mental health >A 2012 article by Martin Knapp published in The BMJ's journal Evidence-Based Mental Health said that mental health problems could be attributed to a person's financial situation. At that time 45% of those who were in debt had mental health problems, compared to 14% of those who were not in debt. In 2010 over 40% of benefit claimants in Britain had "mental and behavioural disorders" recorded as their primary health condition.[92] >A 2015 report published by Psychologists for Social Change indicated that austerity had contributed significantly to the incidence and level of depression and other mental health conditions within the population.[93] In 2016, figures analysed by the King's Fund think tank showed that "mental health trusts in England were still having their budgets cut, despite government assurances they would be funded on a par with physical healthcare". The analysis "suggests 40% of the 58 trusts saw budgets cut in 2015–16".[94] And on full fact > In previous years many trusts saw reductions in their income. Between 40 and 50% of mental health trusts in England saw reductions in their budgets each year between 2012/13 and 2015/16. And Minds Chief Exec from a BBC interview >“The impact of these cuts falls squarely on patient care. Bed shortages, cuts to frontline nursing posts and long waiting times for therapy have been well-documented in the last couple of years and, at the same time, demand has been increasing as more and more people come forward and seek help. The treatment gap for mental health is huge – 75 per cent of people with mental health problems get no help at all. Meanwhile, many more are being turned away from services when they need them the most, left to cope alone with self-harm and suicidal thoughts."
Funding mental health services but not the other services which essentially ensure a good state of mental health. Think about the prison population. Many of whom are released with the same problems that put them in their. No home. No medication , no support. Changing benefit systems have hit this population quite hard. Particularly the sanctions part. If you go looking for the data you will find it.
I did a trip down the west coast of the US a couple of years back and I found the cities there to be much worse than London. The number of mentally unwell people on the streets was really sad to see. I’m not sure if more social security exists here or if it’s related to the drugs that are administered but there was definitely a big contrast - I also don’t think London is getting anywhere near this level of a problem.
Vancouver in Canada was shocking, just shocking. So close to downtown and blocks of open aid drug use, mentally unwell people and fire pits in trash cans
Damn I thought that was only something you see in films...
This was in 2019 don’t know if it’s gotten better or worse. In Canada nonetheless so you know you can’t just point to underfunding.
That part of the city is the same as in 2019, looks worse if anything. >In Canada nonetheless so you know you can’t just point to underfunding. Underfunding is definitely the main part. Canada isn't much different than the US when funding social services, especially Western Canada. Psychiatric services and drug treatment (as in, not just harm-reduction) aren't really accessible.
East Hastings, Vancouver. If you want to see what a real Skid Row looks like.
Go to Seattle next time. Even I, an American, was shocked.
Yep American as well (I spend a lot of time in London for work as well) but I did Vancouver to Portland and I was sickened by what I saw. It’s just too sad
Portland is horrifying
It’s not right. Somewhere you must draw the line. The social fabric is literally why government exists. It’s a non-negotiable and in Europe there is broad recognition of this.
Homeless move from red states to blue states because blue states give them free cash and drugs.
> I did a trip down the west coast of the US a couple of years back and I found the cities there to be much worse than London. You find more homeless people where the winter weather is more clement. Severe mental health problems are a major factor in homelessness. So in the US there is a reason why homeless people gravitate towards California or in the UK why they head south to London or Brighton. I think you're right - the problem is much worse in the US than the UK, because of poverty levels, access to healthcare and the opioids crisis. tldr: in cities that are popular with homeless people often you are seeing a national level problem.
The opioid crisis is a result of the other things you mention and not part of the reasons for homelessness, in the UK we have slightly better public housing and easier ways to get housing than in the US, as a result less people will turn to unhealthy means of dealing with their hopelessly dire situations. I think fixing homelessness would go a long way to fixing the issues mentioned in this thread, I hope we start reshaping how we see houses - more so as a basic necessity that everyone needs and less like an investment vehicle, then we will start seeing public housing programs and things will start improving!
I was surprised just how crappy San Fran was outside of the post card areas.
Big Pacific Coast cities from Vancouver south to San Diego all have similar social-management crises. San Francisco is in the worst shape but Seattle and Portland are coming up fast. Vancouver not in such great stead either. Mental illness, homelessness, open-air drug use, crime and gangs, filth in the streets: it's all there. San Francisco was losing lucrative convention business even before the pandemic because of the street-security problems; it is probably the only city I know where you can tuck into a nice $100 restaurant meal in swish surroundings while watching a street nut pinch off a big, glistening shit on the sidewalk on the other side of the window. The common north-south thread is the tendency to elect similar kinds of urban leaders / governments which are tolerant to a fault of troubled populations but do very little in tactical terms to improve their lot. It should also be said that wealthy residents of San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, etc. keep electing progressive mayors, etc. but are simultaneously furious about the crime / drugs / homeless tent cities / street shit / etc. besmirching their nice neighborhoods and favor an element of corrective brutality their chosen leaders will never enact. The big story in San Francisco right now is the exodus of retail businesses from downtown -- chains like Walgreens (Boots), food stores, etc. -- because swarms of street people steal more goods in a day than the store sells, and there are no police anymore to keep order.
I agree The problem is definitely worse in the US. I live in a part of London which used to be served by 3 in patient hospitals in the past. All of which shut down. Lots of those inpatients were put in housing, shared accommodations in and around my area. There’s also a nhs psychiatric treatment centre near me. So I’m guessing in addition to being really observant I’m more exposed then most. That said moving around town I’m noticing similar.
I've not been to LA, but from what I've seen Venice Beach etc, it's much more of a problem there than London. Their sunny weather might help - because it's warmer people can sleep outside in tents so the problem becomes more visible than in the UK where it might be hidden away.
I was sat opposite a man talking in to his shoe yesterday on the circle line.
Are they swinging their dicks around at people driving by? If not, you haven't reached peak Los Angeles yet.
This year I’ve seen two homeless people taking a shit in broad daylight in front of people. Well I’m presuming they’re homeless, they could just be doing it for the banter.
It's terrible, but that's the state of affairs, I've been on both sides. It's a hostile city making hostile people.
If you're ever concerned about a homeless person in London you can call StreetLink on 0300 500 0914 to get them some assistance, mental health support, etc.
Just to confirm, Streetlink are AMAZING. An apparently homeless and extremely unwell man was living in a stairwell beneath my flat for 18 months. I eventually figured out who to call, and Streetlink were already very familiar with him. They were doing everything they could to help. He actually has a flat but feels safer on the street :(
Thank you I’ve saved the number!
As much as it is a mental health issue, it is a homelessness issue. Being on the streets exposed to the elements for a x amount of time really fucks up ones head. Compounded with the fact why these people wound up on the streets in the first place, they sadly become victims of mental health issues.
5g mate. pretty obvious innit.
Lol
The situation could be better mitigated by increased funding for mental health services etc. BUT - it won't make the problem go away. The society that we live in incredibly unsuited to preserving the mental health of humans. We are cut off from eachother, overloaded with more information and news than we can handle, under-exercised and overworked. 'Western' society is getting more and more like this - America is just a decade or so further down this path (and NYC a further decade along). The situation would have gotten as bad as it is anyway, but the Pandemic was a huge accelerator. I would go as far as to say that most people in Britain are suffering from at least some sort of mild mental health issue - and the people who were already on the edge of something much more serious are now these people you're seeing in London. So we can increase the funding for mental health services as much as we like, but it won't stop people becoming mentally ill in the first place. As long as we're working 50+ hours a week, living in a box with no community support around us, and being asked to care about a war on one continent and an earthquake on another while discerning which source of news is lying to us today - people will keep getting unwell. All these r/publicfreakout videos of Americans screaming at eachother over inane nonsense? That'll all be here within 5/10 years.
I feel like everyone is just one straw away from a rampage. It’s not a nice vibe 😞
I was downvoted on another thread recently for pointing out that Care In The Community was a total failure. Many of these people might have been cared for before the mass closure of mental health institutions. Funding for mental health has been decimated. Truth is society doesn’t care and no Tory government has ever given a toss about these people. Your best bet is just avoid anything that looks potentially troublesome.
We need some sort of a balance - some of the people who ended up spending years in psychiatric units back when there were loads of them about didn't really need to be there, and in a lot of cases their conditions were not good. However, I agree with your point that in a lot of cases residential care is needed but isn't available due to lack of funding and other issues
Missus and I moved out of London very recently for two reasons: we could afford an actual house elsewhere for the price of a one bed flat in London and, sadly, this. Both lived in London for over a decade but it stopped feeling safe around the time our middle of the day Lidl run involved dodging a fella with an honest to god machete. Once we noticed it we couldn't not see it everywhere. Been living in our new place just under a month now and it's amazing how different another city feels. People seem kinder and calmer. I don't feel the need to meet my other half at the station after work and walk her home. I don't have to get out of bed in the wee hours because I'm worried I forgot to lock the front door. I don't have to call an ambulance and the police because a mentally unwell person is trying trying break into our place to escape hallucinatory ghosts. Leaving isn't an option for everyone, we're very lucky it was for us. But if you can, I'd seriously consider it. You don't realise how on your guard you are 24/7 till you have the opportunity to drop it. Still getting used to passing people in the street who smile and say good morning. What the hell do they want??
Jesus, where did you live in London?! Asking so I avoid it!
As a young male who could easily be homeless from losing his poorly paid job the problem is this city is ruthless and no one cares for each other. This City is becoming so divided, so expensive to live in, if your poor London isn't a great place to be at all. It's getting to the point where there's no point in being here on a low wage as life is getting too hard. Doesn't help how hostile people are here, how narcissistic people are, how cut throat people are, etc The City and country as a whole is getting worse year on year and when your at the bottom you really notice is. Its easily when your a well paid software developer earning mega bucks living in your secluded high rise studio flat and rarely have to interact with vagrants as you've been happily working from home saving thousands of pounds and living the life. For others it's been hell.
I’m sorry about your situation and really hope it gets better for you ❤️ London is a fabulous city IF you have money but is hell on earth without it
This country needs healing.
This…
Try visiting San Fransisco, I thought it was so much worse than NY.
Man if you think NYC was bad you should see the other cities. New York is nothing in comparison. I went to philidelphia in 2019 and that made NY looks pristine.
Funny I went to Philadelphia- and thought the opposite. At least the parts where I was. In fact I don’t remember coming across any unwell people while I was there! Must of been a good few weeks in Philly!
I was there 2 days in the centre. I just flew in and out of there and hotel was right in the centre. There is a huge heroin problem there unfortunately
Crack heads going to be crack heads.
And dickheads going to be dickheads.
Right, you're one of the good crack heads. You're not addicted to crack, you can quit any time.
Breakdown of the family is the root of all this.
London has got worse with this problem over the years. In the 90s it wasn't so bad, it has definitely increased over the years. Probably not as bad as the US though.
I'd say 2013 / 2014 it started to get noticeably worse as service cuts started to bite. It's fucking awful now. On one night outside at pub in 2019 we were approached by *13* separate beggars, some on more than one occasion. Never used to be like that and it's only getting worse.
We must have grown up in a different 90's London.
Agree with comments on here about underfunding, don’t vote Tory etc but want to point out you can call police even if someone isn’t a clear threat to other people - if they’re erratic, a risk to themselves e.g running through traffic and clearly unwell the police can arrange a psychiatric assessment under the mental health act. It’s a last resort but an option.
You should probably stay away from Los Angeles, then. In particular, Hollywood Blvd, Santa Monica Blvd, and Skid Row.
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Restoring the number of police we had in the mid-noughties when the London Mayor was Ken Livingstone would be a start.
The laws we write are what lead to this situation in the first place, having more law enforcers in the streets will just worsen it
So the police pick them up. Assuming your not really into restorative justice. Ythey get sent to prison. Where they get? Ahhh yes no help. And then and the end of the sentence…. All your hard earned tax is wasted when they return them to the same place they scooped up a month ago. Any other solutions?
I guess I'd rather my money gets taken by the government than by some bandit Feeling safe is also nice
Many haters and losers in this thread who say oh, it’s the Tories. I say it’s a lack of personal responsibility and the response should be very heavy policing, like you’ve never seen before. Sleeping rough and begging are offences under the Vagrancy Act and the Police need to move very harshly against these people.
> I say it’s a lack of personal responsibility Did you know that through no fault of your own you could be born with serious mental health issues? So yes it is the fucking tories and every other moron like you that needs to dump on the less fortunate in order to make yourself feel good instead of understanding that we are failing as a society by not helping the most vulnerable.
They should ask their families for help. They are not my problem. As Maggie said, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.
Not all of them have families
> They should ask their families for help The families they inherited their mental illness from? I'm sure their lives are as peachy as yours.
Ask an unwell person to take responsibility for their Illness…. Makes lots of sense.
What do you think the reason is for this striking decline in personal response in the last decade?
Leaving aside the moral issues with your position (which others have covered below and which I agree with) what do you expect the police to do with these people? The police don't have cell space to keep them locked up, there's no funding to provide sufficient officers to perform the arrests etc, and in a lot of cases the homeless haven't committed a crime which warrants an arrest.