Cost of Not Caring: Nowhere to Go

October 11, 2016

(USA Today) – More than half a million Americans with serious mental illness are falling through the cracks of a system in tatters, a USA TODAY special report shows. The mentally ill who have nowhere to go and find little sympathy from those around them often land hard in emergency rooms, county jails and city streets. The lucky ones find homes with family. The unlucky ones show up in the morgue. “We have replaced the hospital bed with the jail cell, the homeless shelter and the coffin,” says Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., a child psychologist leading an effort to remodel the mental health system. “How is that compassionate?”