Changing the process and lowering the standard for committing people would require changing state laws. It would also come after solving a staffing shortage among both health care workers. In addition, there is a lacforce people who have not committed a crime and living on the streets into hospitalsk of capacity at the state mental hospital and residential treatment facilities. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler wants it to be easier to force people who have not committed a crime and living on the streets into hospitals.
Oregon is a state that has long made it difficult to force human beings to get mental health treatment. What maybe considered a post pandemic crisis is making normally liberal leaders into supporters of nonliberal solutions as homelessness worsens.
“When I see people walking through the elements without appropriate attire, often naked, they are freezing to death, they are exposed to the elements … I don’t even know if they know where they are or who they are,” said Mayor Wheeler recently.
Others are saying that the local and state governments’ refusal to address the problems beforehand has caused people to be mad at homeless people. The Portland mayor said his plan to tackle the growing crisis on the streets includes a “90-day reset” in the industrial eastside of the city, which would boost the number of law enforcement in the area and likely result in more homeless camp sweeps.
Mental health and substance abuse treatment services in Oregon are considered “woefully inadequate.” The process to civilly commit a person is not easy in Oregon. The political democratic approach seems to be figuring out how to build capacity and offer more care that wouldn’t entail civilly committing people.
