Author: johnastapleton

What if the archetype of the mad, the lonely dishevelled man screaming and scaring passersby on big city street corners could be transformed into a contributing citizen, not through the efforts of those institutions  which claim to change lives, but through genuine efforts to address the self-identified needs of the ‘ chronic patient’: decent supportive housing that enables tenants to practise autonomy, integrated staffing that reflects the value of lived experience instead of coercing, controlling and crushing independence, role models who can address self-defeating behaviours learned on hospital wards and back alleys, and earned income that relieves soul-crushing poverty When people first learn of their diagnosis, they aren’t thinking of those advertising campaigns that portray mental illness as seated in the clear-complexioned, well-dressed, gainfully employed condo dwellers, no, they think…

One of the most instructive exercises we do with group members at Voices From the Street is to ask what would have helped them avoid the life path they’ve been on, lives mostly filled with pain and challenges and want, decades spent on the streets, in shelters or housing that is barely safer than a park bench. This is after we’ve stressed the importance of each person taking responsibility for bad decisions, and/or bad actions; without that acknowledgement it’s difficult to move forward constructively, it’s part of being an adult to own up to mistakes. Sometime later, we pose the important question of what society’s responsibility is: those teachers, ministers, police, parents,  and agencies that are supposed to protect the innocent and vulnerable, where were they, what were they doing,…