If you take anti-depressants ... you get thrown out of Panama City Rescue mission.

[HereSince1628]

Well at least that's the way the zero-tolerance policy for "mind-altering drugs" works in a homeless mission in Panama City FL.

Unemployment decimates the mentally ill, with the best unemployed rates well about 50%. Surviving is a struggle, half the homeless have problems with mental illness. Getting treatment ought to be a basic step in recovery...

Well until it runs into a fundamentalist's strict construction of shelter policies on drug use.

Supposedly this is reasonable because it's in "the interest of safety" that psychiatric medications aren't allowed.

A rational anti-drug policy, or discrimination built on prejudiced beliefs about the dangerousness of the mentally ill?

I just find this crap on the internet and it's way to easy to do it. You can read it and decide for yourself.

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http://www.newsherald.com/news/health/shelter-s-policy-on-mental-illness-questioned-1.407461

[Ilsa]

1. Counseling is good, but depression is best overcome by

Both meds and counseling. Denying shelter to people on meds is naive. That shelter doesn't want to deal with it, even if their residents need meds.

[HereSince1628]

2. It's hard to know what it's really about...

It could be the difficulty of policing medications use within a shelter...

It could be a fear of mental disorders which require medication...

It could simply emerge from the common American expectation that a "quid pro quo" must exist for charity to be rendered.

It could be a combination of many concerns.

Whatever it is, it is a barrier to creating an intersection that provides access to the multiple needs of persons with mental disorders.

[olddots]

3. social services are a drain on the repukes life styles

Very odd when you notice how insane they are for not realizing we are all subject to mental health problems .