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English 1010-68
April 28, 2016

Mental Health and Homelessness Go Hand in Hand

Not all is well in paradise. Utahs Salt Lake Valley is gorgeous, with a majestic mountain
backdrop that can be seen from just about anywhere in the valley. The people living here are less than an
hour away from hundreds of hiking trails and some of the best ski resorts in North America. The
downtown area is rich with culture and unique independent businesses. So whats wrong with this
picture? Although this is a great place to live for many, to others its barely a life. These are the people
who sleep under overpasses, who wait in lines for hours to get just a little to eat and those who ride
around in the public transportation free zone to get out of the elements. These are the homeless.
Homelessness is a big problem everywhere in the world. We may not be able to end it everywhere
right now, but we can start by ending it in our small community of Salt Lake City. While researching this
topic, we noticed a trend among the homeless that involves many of them suffering from mental illnesses.
These mental illnesses are a big problem because once they progress to a stage where the person is
chronically homeless from not being able to work it is often almost impossible for them to be completely
cured. Our solution involves targeting youth who are showing early symptoms of these illnesses. If we
can stop the symptoms before they reach an untreatable stage, then we can help these young adults
decrease the chance of them being homeless because of mental illnesses later on in life. We have chosen
to focus on those affected by mental health issues because we noticed that there are almost no programs
just for them. We were able to find several programs that were for homelessness in general, but only a
couple just for mental illnesses. Mental illness in homelessness is a problem that we see all around, and
because we live in Salt Lake we have noticed a substantial amount in Pioneer Park.

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Many of us avoid driving by Pioneer Park because of its popularity among the homeless, and in
the odd case that we do, our first instinct is to make sure the doors are locked and to avoid eye contact at
all costs, pretending that there isnt a problem in utopia, thinking that if we ignore the problem it will
somehow just vanish. Maybe thats why the numbers showing a miracle drop in homelessness are so
believable to most, because its what they want to be true, regardless if it is or not. But we want you to dig
deep inside of your moral values and ask yourself, is it really okay that a mother and a child are lying
under a cold, hard bridge with nothing but old jackets to cover them just because the mother has severe
depression and is unable to hold down a steady job? We saw this just the other day driving home from
work, and unfortunately, were no better than you. We just drove on, turning up the music and trying to
forget such a sad sight.
As we reflected on that later, we wondered how we would feel if that was one of our loved ones?
If it was our mother, father, or brother? Even if they had mental illnesses, wouldnt we want someone
trying to help them? How many of us would start volunteering at the Road Home to help our mom? How
hard would we try to get our family off the streets? Hopefully, most of us would help out. So why dont
we? These people are all someones child. They are all someones loved one, so why arent we doing
more to help them?

Our group, minus one person, with the homeless we

talked to

By ignoring and pretending the issue of homeless doesnt exist, we are only depriving ourselves
of a safer community. Think of it the four blocks around the Road Home have some of the highest crime
rate in Utah. Most drug trafficking can be traced back to Pioneer Park. (Hudson, par 2). This is the part of
town that young mothers or families have to go to try and find shelter when an unfortunate crisis strikes

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their life. It is time for all of us to work to correct this problem. We can no longer leave it solely to the
government to solve this.
To get more involved in our community, our small group decided we wanted to go talk with some
of the homeless around Pioneer Park. So, we made little kits including various items like sandwiches,
waters, and sanitary supplies, and passed them out. We asked those we interviewed what they thought
were the main causes of homelessness. One homeless person we spoke to was a troubled man from
Sonora, Mexico. He told us very little background information about himself; but he commented on our
question to reasons why homelessness occurs. Where he grew up, certain events in his childhood caused
great effects and traumatized him throughout his life. He also mentioned that he does not receive family
support, which has led him to come to the United States. Perhaps certain events in his life has left him
mentally unstable to hold down a job or has left him un motivated to move forward with life. Another
person we encountered was a woman in her early twenties. She spoke a little bit about her life and how
she came from a wealthy family. She told us she used to own a nice phone, nice clothes, she had it all,
until her life spiraled out of control that ultimately led her to be homeless. She ignored our question to
why she was homeless; but she did say homeless women need more support in this community, because
sexual abuse is among the greatest problem for women in the homeless society. Before talking to these
guys, the first homeless man we encountered on our way to Pioneer Park, explained to our group how
drug addiction has a huge relation to homelessness. He said when you walk into a homeless shelter you
find a number of used syringes on the floors; in fact, you are not allowed entry into a homeless shelter if
you are drunk, but if you are under the influence of any other substance, youre allowed entry.
Going out and talking with these people has made homelessness hit home a little more. There are
so many things that play a factor in todays homelessness, but trying to include it all is impossible. What
our group has proposed for this article, is to focus on those affected by mental health issues. This is
because they are often seen as the lost and who cannot be saved. They are often the last to be selected for
the programs that would get them off the streets and onto their own feet, and there are significantly fewer
resources for them than there are for other people.

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About 20 to 25% of homeless people in the United States struggle with mental illness, it is very
difficult to be able to take care of your health, your family, and maintain a job when your mental state of
being is not well. Understanding mental illnesses and why it occurs could be the first step to solving
homelessness. For our team to learn more on how this affects peoples lives, we decided to call and talk
with some of the people from a few of the homeless shelters around Salt Lake. Jason, from Rescue
Mission of Salt Lake, explained that in a recent survey about 40% of the homeless staying there were
battling mental illnesses. He said that while there are some treatments for them, there are not nearly
enough to help them all.
There are four major mental illnesses that a homeless person usually suffers from, those are
schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and major depression. Schizophrenia is a
disorder often called a split mind disorder, or a disorder where the ill often thinks there are more than one
person in their head. This disease also causes them to have hallucinations, and delusions. About .5% to 1
percent of people suffer from schizophrenia. The Mental Illness Policy states Lack of treatment for the
most seriously mentally ill causes the kind of delusions and bizarre behavior that makes living alone or at
home with families untenable. As a result, many become people with untreated serious mental illness
become homeless and communities are forced to bear the cost of that. According to popular health blog
WEBMD, schizoaffective disorder is the mood disorder that often accompanies schizophrenia. This can
present symptoms of depression and mania, mostly as a bipolar disorder (part. 2). Bipolar disorder is
when your mood shifts dramatically and in a short amount of time, stopping you from thinking clearly.
Most people can go from being happy to angry quickly, but with bipolar disorder the affected person goes
from a state of euphoria to a state of mania. They go from the very end of one side the spectrum to the
very end of the other side. Depression is the most common of all these disorders. Symptoms of depression
often include changes in appetite, loss of concentration and more seriously suicidal thoughts. As you can
see, having one or more of these mental illness can make it very hard to hold down a job or even have a
normal day to life.

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Substance abuse and drug addictions can lead to and are often caused by mental illnesses.
Mentally ill people commonly look to drugs to take away the pain they feel, and overtime that relief turns
into an addiction which only adds to their problems. People who are addicted to drugs also have mental
health issues from the side effects. The number of homeless with mental illness or substance abuse is
almost double than any other cause other than domestic violence, and they have the highest number of
unsheltered each night than any other group. (State of Utah par. 10). Drug addiction has the ability to
take over someone's life. When you are an addict all you can focus on is your next high; drugs and
alcohol can have a large impact on your brain and your mental state.
From the several attempts to solving homelessness around the country, our very own Utah is
among the greatest perceived differences. It has been said that the homeless population has decreased by
91% (Corinth, page 4). We have found that not to be as true as one might think. The Housing First Act
was inconsistent with their counting which made the drop appear larger than it really was. While it was
successful to some degree, we found that it was ultimately a fail. Utah dedicated its help towards giving
people a home, but the problem was more individually. Just as in Utah, many other states have not
focused their solutions on helping those with mental illnesses.

For

(Utah Homeless Task Force, Washington Post, April 17, 2015)

instance, in 2005, Washington state proposed a ten-year plan that would hopefully eliminate their
homeless population by 50%. In 2015, their efforts were deemed a failure due to the lack of one-on-one
work done with homeless people. Throughout the past ten-years, Kings County has found that self-

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destructive behaviors are the major problem in homelessness; and unwillingly to work. Similar to the San
Franciscos Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. Their plans failed because the homeless people simply
relied on the resources but were still unwilling to work and had personal issues unresolved.
We were able to find many solutions that had to do with the Housing First Plan, and several
states Ten Years Plan, but there was only one that we found that was for mental illnesses. This plan was
one that was created by President John F. Kennedy over fifty years ago. In his plan, he abolished the use
of state psychiatric hospitals and opened up community mental health centers instead. While this plan
saved the individual states money, it costed more for the federal government and didnt actually solve the
underlying issue. This plan was a fail. Once these patients were released from the hospital, there was not
enough personalized assistance to help them continue progressing forward. Most of the people who were
dismissed from the program ended up on the streets or in jails after a few years. The stability they needed
ended with the hospitals and when they didnt have that they reverted back to their old state of minds
(Torrey, par. 2).
It is time to change the approach we take on mentally ill homeless. We need to start actually
doing something about this and not let it slide by. One of the biggest obstacles facing this important issue
is there are simply not enough psychiatrist, clinical psychologist and social workers to be able to handle
the massive amount of homeless with mental illnesses. By contacting the Road Home we were informed
they only employ one psychiatrist, her name is Jessica Jones. We were unable to contact her directly
because she is frequency out of the office working with patients. Apart from Jones we were unable to find
more professionals that are working exclusively with the 774 mentally ill homeless in the state of Utah
(State of Utah 26).
What if we could reduce the number of people that have these serious disorders? It becomes very
hard to treat these disorders once they appear in someone who is chronically homeless. We believe this is
a very achievable goal by turning our attention to youth, essentially stopping the problem before it can get
any worse.

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We have come up with a plan we decided to call Counseling Against Homelessness. This plan is to
work with youth of middle and high school age who show symptoms of mental health disorders and treat
them before illnesses can fully develop. By age 14 the symptoms of metal disorders are present (National
Institute of Mental Health par. 1); at this stage it is still relatively new and very treatable, compared to the
chronic homeless who have had years to develop serious disorders. We believe, along with Professor
Larry Christiansen, Associate Professor of Psychology at Salt Lake Community College, that it will be
much more effective to focus on prevention of serious mental disorders that lead to homelessness rather
than treatment
We would identify these youths by using a similar system to that currently being used in the schools we
attended to report bullying. How it works is that when a student or teacher sees bullying happen they fill
out a suggestion form and turn it into a boxes posted throughout the school for review by the school
counselors. Our idea would follow this plan; it would allow students and teachers to fill out names of
those they think could benefit from counseling from these college interns. We will have the local school
counselor with the assignment to oversee the Counseling Against Homelessness plan organize and review
which students to include in this program.
As stated above a lack of those trained in counseling is still a big obstacle in treating and preventing
mentally ill homeless. How can we have a greater workforce without having a giant raise in taxes to pay
for these professionals? The answer comes by looking at college students. In most medical professions the
student is required to pass clinical, internship or some sort of hands on training as part of their schooling.
These are great programs which dont cost the companies a great sum of money while helping the
students be more prepared for their future careers. We believe that students studying in fields of
psychology and social work could participate in internships like those of the medical field. These interns
will help youth create positive mental health and avoid the streets.

There are three main parts our plan:

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1.

Professor or trained professional- They would be in charge of supervising students. Their role

would be to give weekly relevant instruction, assist in counseling, answer questions and give feedback to
interns. They would also coordinate with middle or high
counselor in assigning intern to students.
2.

Interns- They would be assigned approximately 2-3 youth to work

with throughout the semester. Their goal would be that of a professional:

diagnose cause(s) that have led to symptoms of mental health issues, evaluate
their needs, set goals, and strive to help them achieve the set goals.
3.

Middle or High School Counselor- They would organize the recommendations made by

teachers and students for the program, acquire parental permission for students
entering program, and would set up times with students and interns for counseling and where to meet.
It is a rather easy process to follow. For example, Miss Duncan an English teacher notices that Jimmy
has a dramatic decrease in performance and has begun to isolate himself. Miss Duncan can fill out a
suggestion form and turn it into one of the boxes in the hall. It will be collected and reviewed by the local
school counselor in charge of referring students to the program. The referred students names will be sent
to the professor supervising the interns. He will assign Jimmy to Kyle, a student of clinical psychology,
and the professor will give instruction to Kyle in order to prepare him for counseling. The school
counselor will make an appointment for Jimmy to meet Kyle. This will be during an open time during
school where students can go to classes they need help in, which most Jr High Schools currently have, or
they can meet after School. Kyle will try hard to make a positive environment by showing interest in
Jimmys life and, goals with him to help overcome symptoms of mental illness. Kyle can report to
supervisor and receive feedback on how to improve counseling. They will continue to meet and set goals
that will help Jimmy have a health mind.
The funding for this program would be relatively low. The Professor and school counselor would
be funding by the schools and universities they work for. The schools would receive aid from the
Homelessness Outreach budget. This is a reasonable request since mentally ill homeless are the most

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expensive to care for. In a recently published study reported that the average cost for public services for
such mentally ill homeless individuals is $22,372 per person per year, and that amount includes only
some of their costs (Poulin et al 583 ) . By giving a small aid to get these plans going it would be saving
the states tens of thousands even if the Counseling Against Homelessness plan only kept one new
mentally ill person from living on the streets each year.
By starting this plan, we would be able to easily triple the force of therapists working with those who
have symptoms of mental illness. These people are in need of early personalized treatment before
symptoms lead to developed illness. We would strive to create a positive environment by show genuine
interest and goal setting that would help them throughout their life. The increased number of therapists
would help us with reaching our goals. This project might take a year or two to get up and running
smoothly, so our short term goal would be to start with University of Utah and Roosevelt Jr. High School.
We have begun contacting the internship chair in the psychology and social work departments
of the university. One of the professors in these departments would be the supervisor for the students and
fulfil the need stated above under Professors. We will then contact the principle of the Roosevelt Jr High
School and receive permission to begin our program at that school. An instructional presentation will be
sent out to teachers in order to help them identify students who might be shows symptoms or mental
illness. It will also show them how to recommend students for the program.
Here we would be able to refine the best process for meeting and creating a positive atmosphere
where students can be counseled effectively. We recognize that not all mentally ill homeless are raised in
Utah and for that reason, our long term goal would be that the Counseling Against Homeless plan would
spread throughout all of Utah. In a few years we would be able to see the success as a rapid drop of youth
and young adults with serious mental disabilities. Our hope is to become a nationwide program.
In the end, we can see that while solving homelessness is very important it is also unrealistic.
However, when you break it down to the reasons people are homeless and start solving each one of those
you can actually start to make a difference. This is why we believe our plan will work; we are going to
focus on one aspect of homelessness and once we have cured that we can gear our resources towards

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another cause. Mental illness is the obvious choice to start with because there are so few resources
available to mentally ill homeless.
With this goal in mind, we had to see if this plan could actually work, so we contacted one of our
past middle school teachers and explained it to her. We asked her if, as a teacher, she was able to
recognize when a student was having a mental illness, and her answer was an enthusiastic yes. She
explained to us about an experience she had within the past month and a half where she noticed a student
was clearly disturbed so she referred him over and over again for four weeks until a school social worker
finally did something about it. He was diagnosed with manic depression and was suicidal. He got help
just in time, or else this teacher feels he would have dropped out (Stephanie Coates). Our program would
make it possible for a teacher like her to refer a student and not have to wait a month before the school
finally did something about it. Teachers can, and do, notice when their students are struggling mentally
and they want to do something about it. Most of these students would be unreceptive to getting help with
their school counselor, which is where the college students come in. In a survey that we implemented, 37
out of 43 teachers believed their students wouldnt like help from their regular school counselor. They
need help, and the college students need practice so it is a win-win situation.
We believe that with this program we can eventually eliminate homelessness that was caused by
mental illness. This will significantly help lower the number of homeless in the population. This will help
reduce the costs spent on mentally ill homeless so that that money can be used to help another cause of
homelessness. We conceive that our solution will be very beneficial and successful in helping mentally ill
homeless.

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Works Cited
Christensen, Larry. Personal interview. 12 Apr. 2016.
Coates, Stephanie. Email interview. 21 April 2016.
Corinth, Kevin. "Think Utah Solved Homelessness? Think Again." The Huffington Post.
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Hudson, Don. "Problems around Pioneer Park." GOOD4UTAH. n.p., 06 Nov. 2013. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.good4utah.com/contact/don-hudson/pioneer-park-homeless-salt-lake-city-donhudson>
Kolata, Gina. Drug Addicts Among The Homeless: Case Studies of Some Lost Dreams. nytimes.com.
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McCoy, Terrance, The Surprisingly Simple Way Utah Solved Chronic Homelessness and Saved
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Mcevers, Kelly. Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness By 91 Percent; Here's How. npr.com. NPR inc, 4
Apr. 2015. Web. 2 Apr. 2016. <http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronichomelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how>.

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Miloscia, Mark. "King County's Plan to End Homelessness Has Failed." The Seattle Times. n.p., 14 Mar.
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<https://jobs.utah.gov/housing/scso/documents/homelessness2015.pdf>.

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Utah. Department of Workforce Service. Comprehensive Report of Homelessness State of Utah 2014.
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