Ed, yes, absolutely. Every country has different policies, but I worked in a outpatient daycentre for mentally ill people for two and a half years, round 1985, when the 'back to the community approach started, where people with a variety of mental health problems got released back into the community if it was deemed safe to do so. It's a very tricky tricky problem, you don't want the direness of the Victorian approach where everyone with some mental problem is locked up and drugged up, and it's really quite tricky to judge when someone is really ill and dangerous rather than just having a crisis of sorts most of us will suffer from at some point in our lives. But someone being safe while in safe and institutionalised surroundings is one thing, when they are faced living alone in some bedsit and having to dare to go out to the shops and cope when the loo paper runs out is quite another. I witnessed as many mistakes as successes with this approach, but with this man being homeless there wouldn't have been anyone looking after him, the funds for outreach social services staff are some of the quickest to be cut anyhow, the volunteer organisations here do amazing work, I have no idea if there is any such thing in Teneriffe. And you know I still think of some of the patients, and wonder how they are getting on. Some were just really lonely, and got into some vicious circle with themselves. Another reason always to be friendly to strangers out there, you never know how much a bit of kindness at the right time can change someone's day.
