We once had a psychiatric hospital here in Santa Clara County
Web Link

This was near Lafayette and Montague Expressway
It is now occupied by the Oracle Campus, lots of tract homes, a shopping center.
The Administrative Buildings live on as a National Park to preserve the historical
architecture. Security personnel have reported ghostly behavior but I've never seen any. The original conversion took place in late 1990s early 2000 when this became Sun Microsystem's flagship campus and the administrative buildings became corporate HQ for a little while before shifting back to Menlo Park.

So what is the purpose of this story?
1. Psychiatric Hospitals are needed
2. A long time ago we had substantial resources devoted to this
3. If you interview homeless, you will see a mix of issues. One of them, which
will comprise a substantial % of the many issues, will be mental illness.
4. Until we get this Mental Illness issue addressed with adequate resources, we
will be chasing our tails and spending $Billions with no results.
5. There are well intentioned people who advocate letting homeless just camp where ever they want or just putting them in hotels and there should not be any interviews to evaluate mental stability. I think if we let these well intentioned advocates continue on this path there will be no progress.
6. We need to restart psychiatric hospital programs.

JustAWorkingStiff: I agree that mental health services tackle many problems at the source of homelessness that housing alone does not. And yes, housing resources are likely inefficiently utilized when mental health needs continue to be neglected. I just would not want your argument construed to suggest that efforts to get people housed should be on hold “Until we get this Mental Illness issue addressed with adequate resources.” That would be like arguing that people should first be discharged in good condition from hospitals before wasting resources feeding them. They are not sequential needs. They are parallel.

Housing instability is both a result AND a cause of mental illness. While complete success will not be achieved until mental health is adequately addressed, housing should not be delayed waiting for that ideal world to arrive. That battle is continual. Housing people, even with mental illness, is not “no results”, and mental health screening should be towards referring for help, not eliminating from housing.

We aren’t treating homelessness or illness. We are treating people. You may not have intended to say otherwise, but because that is often where politics goes, I wanted to emphasize the point.

- professional mental health worker