A number of factors hav contributed to the makeup of the homeless population today.  The large loss of well-paying jobs in manufacturing is a primary factor.  Today it has been estimated that more than two million factory jobs---full-time, with benefits---have been erased each year since 1979.  Instead of being replaced with full-time, well-paying jobs in other industries, the service industry has created a flood of jobs, usually minimum wage, with few if any benefits.

     Another factor that has increased the population of the homeless is the closing of mental hospitals.  Before the 1970s people judged by psychiatrists to be potentially dangerous to themselves or to society were placed in these institutuions, often against their wills.  In the 1970s, however two changes occurred that resulted in hundreds of thousands of people mentally ill  being released from these institutions.

     The first was a change in the laws.  Many people, worrried aobut the civil rights of the mentally ill, argued that it was wrong to put people in mental institutions just because someone thought they MIGHT be dangerous.  Only those who have committed crimes, they argued should be institutionalized.

     The second was the invention of revolutionary new drugs that kept many mentally ill patients calmer.  It was believed that if mentaly ill people took their medications regularly, they could be released from the institutions.  Instead of the large, state-run mental hospitals, communities would build smaller clinics to service the needs of the mentally ill patients, usually on an outpatient basis.

      This optimistic scenario did not become reality.  Whereas in the 1960s there were a half million beds available in public mental institutions, by 1980 there were fewer than one hundred thousand.  To further complicate matters, the community mental-health clincs were not built in the numbers that had been promised.

     When the state institutions released these patients with a weeks's supply of medication and a bag full of their clothing, many of them had nowhere to go.  Many ended up in jails; many more who had no family to care for them ended up on the streets.  And because so few community health centers were built, there were no supervisors to make sure those mentally ill people received and took their medications.  The fallout of this decision is grim---almost one-third of the homeless in the United States are mentally ill and cannot care for themselves adequately.

 

_________________

 

This is a 2 part speech.

Part 1 is the BEFORE part getting YOU to come help us, answering your questions, and preparing you for the difference this experience will make for the rest of your life.

 

Part 2 is the AFTER part thanking you for your service, T-shirt & plaque presentation, and photo in our newsletter & your local newspaper.

MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND:  "Whistle while you work" & "Opps, there goes another rubber tree plant..."

*  National Memorial Homeless Persons Day

*  National Volunteers Day

 

     If you woke up this morning with more health than  illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

    

    If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of  imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation. You are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

 

     If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest,  torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

 

     If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead  and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.

 

     If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish  someplace you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

 

     If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare,  even in the United States and Canada.

 

     If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that  someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.