I didn't live in BC through all the years of the following, but anyone with a   
   brain knew that closing a major mental illness facility and putting its   
   residents out onto the streets was going to be a recipe for disaster.  And it   
   was.  And it still is.   
      
   Police are not trained to be handlers of mentally ill people.  Period.  The   
   number of hours being devoted to their training in this area are so limited as   
   to be worthless.     
   Cops are trained in defence and offence.  Offence to stop the aggressor;   
   defence to protect their own ass and make it home that night uninjured.   
      
   But what is happening since there are so little facilities and trained people   
   to respond to calls of 'distress' on the 911 line, is that those who are   
   trained only in defence and offence are choosing defence and killing the   
   mentally ill.   
      
   Here's where it started in British Columbia - and has resulted in the chaos   
   and bloodshed we're seeing now - every day.   
   _______________________________________________   
   Wikipedia:   
      
      
   Impact of closure   
      
   In 1992 about 8,000 of the yearly emergency admissions to Vancouver's mental   
   health facilities were people with both drug addictions and mental illnesses.   
   The reason is stated that “Port Coquitlam's Riverview Hospital is being   
   emptied, and the sick are    
   being thrown to the coyotes”.   
      
   Joseph Noone, the clinical director psychiatrist-in-chief at Riverview in 1992   
   claimed that A Draft Plan to Replace Riverview Hospital had “magical faith   
   that the Social Credit government would follow through on its promises to   
   expand services in the    
   community once they had downsized this hospital”.  Noone claims that he was   
   suspicious of the report since its publication. Noone also stated that 1,000   
   patients were brought in and shipped out of Riverview annually.   
      
   The 1990 “Mental Health Initiative” stated that the provincial government   
   would invest $26 million in additional funding over the following 10 years.    
   But only the first payment was initiated and in 1992, the second payment was   
   18 months overdue.   
      
   The Greater Vancouver Mental Health Services had only 115 full-time workers   
   with over 4,000 patients in the same year.  Ex-patients of Riverview were   
   often left without help or financial aid which caused them to flock toward the   
   Downtown Eastside of    
   Vancouver.   
      
   Mark Smith, director of Triage, a shelter in Vancouver stated that “there is   
   zero available housing for these people – not even flop houses”.  He also   
   says that much of the time, Riverview would try to discharge their patients   
   right into the    
   overnight shelter.  He claims that the mass discharges were turning the   
   Downtown Eastside of Vancouver into a mental health ghetto.  He also mentioned   
   that many of his clients that had recently been discharged from Riverview   
   (mostly schizophrenics) would    
   commit suicide shortly after discharge due to failure to properly medicate   
   from lack of professional supervision.   
      
   Andrew Wan, a Kitsilano mental health worker stated that in 1992, the   
   conditions of privately run boarding homes are often no better than others.   
   The places are run-for-profit so they skim over expenses.   
   _________________________   
      
   In 2013 the mayor of Maple Ridge stated he was concerned with the number of   
   people with mental illness who were living on the street in the Lower   
   Mainland. His council is pushing to re-open Riverview Hospital to help solve   
   the problem.   
      
   On September 20, 2013, the BC Government rejected the recommendation of the   
   Union of BC Mayors to re-instate Riverview Hospital.  The reason the Premier   
   [Christy Clark] gave was that re-institutionalization is not the solution to   
   homelessness or drug    
   addiction. Instead there is "a new set of problems we need to deal with"   
      
   The Valleyview building, one of the last buildings onsite to close, began to   
   be demolished in 2016.  The building has been recently altered to be used in   
   the film Godzilla (2014) and was still in modern hospital conditions -   
   conservationists had hopes to    
   save the building so that it could be reopened but demolition went ahead.   
   __________________________   
      
   Enter the NDP government, under John Horgan . . . . (2017)   
      
   The construction of a provincially-funded $101 million mental health and   
   addiction treatment facility on the Riverview grounds began in 2017 and is   
   planned to open its doors in 2021.   It will house 105 patients and provide   
   specialized care for adults    
   with severe and complex mental health and addiction challenges.   
   ________________________   
      
   Okay, so 105 beds won't make up for the 4,000 beds that were closed in   
   Riverview and Crease Clinic, but it will take some of the most sick and   
   dangerous and re-offending off our streets.   
      
   What happened in BC is likely happening all over the country . . .  mentally   
   ill are being turned out of facilities that knew how to care for them - with   
   the objective of saving money for the Provinces.     
      
   And the mentally ill became the burden for every other taxpayer through repeat   
   calls for medical and police services, housing, and food.  . .  Not to mention   
   the impact on neighbourhoods through tent cities, trash and street   
   solicitation.   
      
   It was stupid to close those facilities for the mentally ill and expect them   
   to cope within society without a lot of help.  It was stupid to expect society   
   to accept the mentally ill and their effect on neighbourhoods without   
   complaint.  It was stupid to    
   expect POLICE to be the first responders to interact with the mentally ill.   
      
   So now we know it was stupid.  So now how do we fix it?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)