There are mental hygiene laws in place against involuntary hospitalizations for a reason. It is a very slippery slope to have untrained mental health professionals (police) having the power to involuntarily bring someone to inpatient mental health facilities. The hospitals also don’t have the beds to house everyone, so a lot are discharged from triage right back to the streets.

It’s not a question of whether or not someone wants the accept the help. We already have laws and procedures in place for those people. Enforcing, processing and placing those people, is the challenge. Police need more credits in clinical mental health, we need more hospitals beds, DAs and public defenders who will work to process these cases, and safe, sanitary, and audited long term housing for these people.

TLDR: We need more money going to the right places.

• Mental health worker for over 10 years.