The Governor of Colorado - some good ideas, some really stupid ideas
Colorado's new draconian gun laws are a really stupid idea -- more than one firearm company has moved out of state in protest taking hundreds of jobs and millions in tax revenue.
Governor Hickenlooper has come up with a fantastic idea along the same lines -- something that will actually have an effect on the problem and not just a generalized gun grab.
From
National Public Radio:
Colorado Weighs Reopening Psychiatric Hospital For Homeless
Last summer's mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., led Gov. John Hickenlooper to call for stricter gun control and big new investments in mental health care.
Several significant gun bills passed, and a package of mental health reforms is moving forward. But there may not be enough support to win funding for 300 new inpatient psychiatric beds.
That proposal by the Democratic governor would bring mentally ill and addicted homeless people to Fort Lyon, at one time a psychiatric hospital for veterans and then a prison. The facility, near the tiny town of Las Animas, has been closed for two years.
Under the plan, people would leave the streets of the cities where they live now and voluntarily come to Fort Lyon. And the town would welcome the jobs that reopening the facility would create.
Jack Simms, who's been homeless in Colorado Springs for a decade, says it's needed.
"I see it, man. They need to open some beds somewhere, at a mental health facility or something," says Simms, who says he struggles with depression and smokes pot to cope. "I can survive out here, [but] these mentally ill people, it's rough. They just walk up and down the paths. They look like zombies. I'd be a guinea pig. I'd try it out."
It would be much cheaper to run than a bunch of de-centralized homeless shelters and although it looks like a prison on the outside, it could be made very inviting inside with all sorts of activities for the inmates to engage in. Colorado already has laws for pot so each inmate could have an allowance and be able to buy pot or booze if they wanted. Books too. A garden and good internet connection? They could set up a business and receive the full profits (unlike businesses in prisons). Hell, I would consider moving in there...
A bit more:
But not everyone thinks that this plan is going to do a lot of good.
"Having someone in transitional housing teaches people how to manage living in transitional housing," says Sam Tsemberis of the nonprofit Pathways to Housing. "But then they have this huge hurdle, the re-entry problem."
Hell -- Sam makes his money by processing the mentally ill from hospitalization through getting them back on the streets. If this plan was put into effect, he would lose a large percentage of his 'clients' and he would have to find some other scam to run. Someone like Holmes or Lanza would never be able to be re-integrated. They are just plain nuts and need to be kept away from society for the remainder of their natural born lives. Lanza saved society the expense but Holmes is going to be expensive to the taxpayers of Colorado.
Posted by DaveH at May 5, 2013 3:21 PM