What should be done to help the mentally ill?

Applesauce

janesix said:

I think more group homes, with onsite health/psychiatric teams and security would be a good start. Many can't take care of themselves and have no options and no where to go. The lucky ones have families that help take care of them. I am talking about the severely mentally ill, those with schizophrenia etc. 

that's a great question and should make you wonder why it's rarely ever asked.  So to understand where you are you must know where you've been.  There use to be hospitals where people were essentially locked up.  Due to budget concerns they were closed under the the guise of it was inhuman to keep them locked up etc.  it's been a long time since i've looked any of this stuff up, but I seem to recall once they closed these hospitals down the homeless rate starting going up quickly as did drug use by these affected people.  The fact is some people can't and shouldn't ever be allowed to live on their own.  For their own good and society's.  But how can you implement something like that and avoid abuse?  That's the biggest hurdle.  Mental health is a failed system on a great many levels.  How do we fix it and protect people's rights is extremely complex and difficult imo.  For starters there should be NO insurance copay or out of pocket expense for these services with proof that services were actually rendered.  This is difficult for me because I believe in capitalism and subscribe to most libertarian ideas.  However this is an important enough issue that it should be a socialist approach, but kept as minimally socialist as possible.
So what are the barriers of receiving treatment/help
cost
access
availability
probably some others I can't think of off the top of my head, but I think that's probably a good starting point.