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Aside from the incredibly high unemployment rate - gov't cutbacks to mental health spending has been the biggest contributing factor to the dramatic increase of homelessness in our local area. All day long I see so many people out on the streets with obvious mental health issues that simply have nowhere to go for treatment and shelter.
And every spring we see an influx of new faces.
Ten years ago in our local city we had between 12-20 known chronic homeless people - we knew all of them by sight. In fact we gave many of them nicknames. Exidor (talks to imaginary people), Tommy 2-carts (pushes caravans of shopping carts), The Grate One (sleeps on steam grates by the courthouse), Missing Link (knuckle-scraper neanderthal dude), Finger Man (anger management issues...gives everyone the finger all day long), Mr. Rock 'n Roll, Red-Headed Stepchild...etc.
But now - we see perhaps 50-60 homeless on the streets - talking to lampposts, fighting with roadsigns, staring at their fingers all day. And it just keeps getting worse. We've had to beef up security at City Hall and install an expensive network of security cams around the perimeter to monitor the situation and deal with related issues.
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