Homelessness, Mental Illness, and Crime are the provincial government’s fault

Open Letter to the Provincial Government

Over the past few months, we’ve heard of the ever-increasing attacks in the large urban centres (transit, streets, malls).  We’ve also heard of Mayors and Councils having to declare “emergencies” to clear out “homeless encampments.”  There have been murders, drug dealing, all kinds of crime in and around every community.  This may or may not point to mental illness, but most certainly that is where officials and media go, when reporting on the actions some governments are taking.

As for the mental illness side of things.  Some continue to equate mental illness with drug abuse.  There may or may not be a direct line between the two, other than doing cannabis, at an early age (before the age of 25+), can cause schizophrenia and/or other mental illnesses.  One can be a drug user and yet not have any underlying mental illness, but a mental illness grips the person in a continuing pit of hell.  Most have no concept of what is right or wrong; cannot make informed decisions; hear voices that tell them what to do and those voices never end and are never silent without that poor soul taking their medication on a prescribed basis.  

Parents and family members, of those with mental illness, are completely handcuffed by the volumes of rules, legislation, regulation, bureaucratic “forms,” (30 +) and a revolving door of responsibility or no responsibility.  This is because those volumes of legislation stop any, and all, efforts a family might take to keep their loved ones protected, as well as society, as a whole.  Families can try to get guardianship but, and there is always a but, once they do, there is no place one can institutionalize someone, permanently, for their and their communities’ safety.  No one wants to institutionalize someone who may be able to function in society, but there are those who will not stay on their medications and continue to deteriorate without much needed help on a continuous basis.  Yes, this does mean institutionalization for their own protection.

There are also those who scam this poor unsuspecting mentally ill people.  They train the unwell on how to get out of an institution when the unwell are placed in a hospital for assessment.  They don’t care if that person will harm themselves or others and they will take money, goods, etc., (fraud) for their own gain, at the detriment of the person with mental illness.  Some may even say they are “third party care-givers” so they can merely keep the mentally ill happy by not giving the unwell their meds.  This is a vicious circle and it continues because government does not want to spend money in the proper places for those with mental illness.

Having had many come to me for help, all I can do, because I am not a lawyer, is to tell them they need to seek legal advice.  It breaks my heart to see these families destroyed by one member who, themselves, are being destroyed with these various illnesses.  The road blocks government put in front of these families is beyond the pale.  Here’s merely a sample of some of the legislation that these poor people are dealing with.

• Health Care Consent Act, 1996
• Health Care Consent Act O REG 104/96 EVALUATORS
• Health Protection and Promotion Act O REG 136/18
• Health Protection and Promotion Act
• Mental Health Act
• Mental Health Act REGULATION 741
• Nursing Act, 1991
• Patient Restraints Minimization Act, 2001
• Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004
• Substitute Decisions Act, 1992
• Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 O REG 60/05, O REG 460/05 CAPACITY ASSESSMENT
• Substitute Decisions Act O REG 26 95 GENERAL
• Substitute Decisions Act O REG 99 96 REGISTER GUARDIAN DUTIES
• Substitute Decisions Act O REG 100 96 ACCOUNTS AND RECORDS GUARDIANS

It isn’t just the families who are dealing with this mountain of legislation/regulation.  It is also the entire health care system, so much so, that many in the medical profession and, even, the legal profession, want nothing to do with any form of mental illness process.  These are the words of family members who are at the end of their rope, merely trying to protect their loved one from that loved own self.

There is nothing in these many pieces of legislation, right down to becoming a guardian, that allows anyone to be permanently placed, for their own good, in an institution.  This was found in a document from the federal justice department.  When reading the below, understand “forensic population” means “criminal activity committed by those with mental illness.”

“Unfortunately, it often does. As a result of resource shortages, these customers who should have been accommodated by an adequately resourced civil mental health system have now become “forensic patients”.

With downsizing and/or restructuring of the civil mental health care systems across Canada there was inevitably the promise that by reinvesting the money saved with the bed closures into less expensive out-patient community treatment the mental health care system would actually be better off. While superficially attractive, I don’t know of any compelling support for this proposition. Some say that the ineffective shift to out-patient, community-based treatment may have something to do with the increases we are observing. Others say that, in any event, those saved dollars are never reinvested in alternative community-based care as advertised. I think that it is safe to say that many mentally ill individuals can be adequately supported through community treatment but that, at the same time, there are many who cannot be supported through community mental health care. Certainly, at the time of the transitioning it was an unproven alternative.

There is probably no single explanation for the fantastic growth of the forensic population. It is undoubtedly a product of a multiplicity of factors which includes the ones cited above.”

Many families are dealing with this all year round, but at this time of year it’s even harder.  The hospitals are over-whelmed; the municipalities are wondering why there are so many homeless when there shouldn’t be; and the purported “community-based treatment may have something to do with the increases we are observing.”  The provincial governments, due to their, one can only suspect, greed, are turning these poor souls out, into the cold and are making it impossible for families to look after their loved ones.  Not everyone can recover; not everyone will stay on their medications and with the increasing number of homeless, we are seeing, this is the result of government’s harm to people, particularly those with mental illness. 

I can only hope that the province will amend and/or rid the people, of Ontario, of this bureaucratic nightmare, so families can care for their loved ones and, if needed, have said loved ones placed in a safe institutional environment for their and our protection.

It’s up to you for their and our safety.

Elizabeth Marshall
Author
Director of Research – Ontario Landowners Association
Past Chair – Canadian Justice Review Board
Legal/Legislative/General Researcher –
MPs, MPPs, Senators, Municipal Officials, Lawyers, etc.

I am not a lawyer and do not give legal advice.