Ronald Reagan closed mental institutions back in the 1980’s with no transitional plan, causing a huge population of people living on our streets across this country.  Today, in this country and around the world, some institutions, politicians, police and individuals are still carrying out Reagan’s policies of dumping people with disabilities onto streets.
            From Japan to Los Angeles, people with disabilities are being dumped on our streets in record numbers.  “Chinese Gangs Dumping Disabled Children in Hong Kong, Lawmakers Says, “Disabled Woman Dumped at Inaccessible Shelter,” “Northwoods police Dumped a Homeless Man on the Street Corner in St. Louis” and “Paraplegic Allegedly ‘Dumped’ on Skid Row.”  These latest news headlines tell us that dumping people with disabilities is nothing new and it continues to occur from all walks of life, from political officers, to police, to Japanese gangs, to hospitals.
            Although President Bush talked about domestic issues in his state of the Union Address and Californians voted for Prop 1c, Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006; the above headlines continue to fill up newspapers, and homeless people with disabilities continue to be abused by institutions and individuals.  In the 1990s Californians witnessed a campaign for force treatment policy toward people with mental health disabilities; the latest headlines tell us that a paraplegic homeless man has been dumped on the streets by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van. This is not the first time this hospital has dumped people who are homeless and disabled onto the streets. According to the LA Times Newspaper this practice occurred in 2005 at the same hospital.  A disabled San Francisco journalist, Laurie McElroy, just wrote an article for the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper about how an African American pregnant woman was asked to leave the New Generation Health Center in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco for no reason.  What happens to the word, public, in public health?
            When I was a teenager I saw New York police officers placing elderly and homeless people with mental health disabilities on Greyhound buses with a one way ticket to California, but when I moved to San Francisco, I witnessed former Mayor Frank Jordan’s Matrix Program that cited people who were homeless on petty charges and had vans that circled downtown San Francisco letting people back onto our streets because of a lack of space in nearby shelters.  Mayor after Mayor in cities across this country has come into office with a get tough on the homeless policy, from New York to California.  This type of legislative thinking goes against solutions from local and national homeless advocates. For example, the National Coalition on Homelessness has many campaigns and legislation proposals, like The Bringing America Home Act (H.R. 4347) and the Health Care Access Resolution. Both Michael Reinke, acting director of the Indiana Coalition on Housing and Homeless Issues and Michael Stoops, the Director of the National Coalition on Homeless told me that hate crimes are increasing against people who are homeless because of many factors including institutional policies and action that are abusive and creates roadblocks to services, shelter and medical needs. 
              During the Christmas holidays last year two Independent Living Centers held rallies at California’s shelters bringing attention to a lack of accessibility in California’s homeless shelters and also the San Francisco Coalition on Homeless has kicked off a campaign around improving homeless shelters.  Now if people with disabilities who are homeless can’t access the homeless shelters because of a lack of accessibility (which is against local disability laws and the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991) and are being thrown out of hospitals, can we blame institutions for helping to create an environment that leads to hate, crime and violence?  Although it was stated in a recent LA Times article that the practice of dumping patients is not new, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and many other hospitals have a record of investigating themselves.  I have seen the police investigate themselves in cases of police brutality and nine times out of ten that investigation goes nowhere.  I hope the city attorney of Los Angeles, Rocky Delgadillo, continues with his case against several medical facilities on this issue! In the mean time, please get involved by getting in touch with the below homeless advocacy agencies.

(1) www.nationalhomeless.org for a copy of Hate Crime Bill

(2) Jessica Lehman at the Community Resources for Independent Living (510) 881-5743

(3) Coalition on Homelessness San Francisco

(4)  Los Angeles Homeless Service Coalition  (310) 474-0222

(5) Los Angeles City Attorney, Rocky Delgadillo (213) 978-8100

(6) Disabled People Outside, Danny McMullan    (510) 688-2342 or danmcmullan@comcast.net

(7) Western Regional Advocacy Project (415) 621-2533

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