How does addiction/mental illness lead to homelessness?

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I recently learned that a distant friend I had in secondary school died on the streets. He had Aspergers and while very knowledgable really struggled with socializing (people found him creepy and annoying). He also had many sensory issues and could never focus in class.

I heard that after finishing school, he tried going back and repeating but got into heavy drug use and ended up kicked out and homeless before dying on the streets 6 years later.

I've heard that anyone can become homeless but most recover from it and the 'long-term' homeless almost exclusively have drug dependency/mental illness/issues with criminal records.

I know schizophrenia is common among homeless but it's not the only mental/neurodivergent disorder.

Can you not think for a minute how this could happen? Chaotic lives with maybe no job, no rental guarantee, bills not paid? Single men especially are not top of the list for help and probably have no immediate right to support and housing in the way say a mother with young children would have. So you have no cash, ran out of friends to crash with, no contact with family, pittance in UC and no landlord will touch you?

Addiction means needing money to sustain your habit of choice, but substance abuse means you’re unlikely to be able to hold a job down to pay for that and a place to live.

Adding in that they have zero incentive to engage with services.

Even if they get a tenancy through a local authority or association, if they don't engage with services/take medication/consistently make poor decisions, then they're going to be evicted.

There's also a massive struggle getting mental health services to accept any referrals of very clear issues. A lot end up being 'capable of understanding the consequences of their actions' so landlords have no choice but to evict.

Is this a serious question?

Some people struggle. Some people don’t have the safety net of family and friends to pick them up when they fall. Some people’s problems are bigger than their family and friends can cope with.
It’s desperately sad but the system isn’t there to support and look after everyone.
Drugs and mental health issues are very hard to climb out of. It’s tragic.

@DiddyHeck

Is this a serious question?

This

the city i live in has units (not really homes per say) for the rough sleepers and homeless but they are not allowed to use drugs or be under the influence to stay there.
their addiction is so strong they cant abide by the rules.

You seriously can’t think how a habit which will use up every little bit of money you have can lead to homelessness? Really?

Family member.
Male
Schizophrenic & alcoholic
(Occasionally Gets so drunk he falls & breaks multiple bones type alcoholic)
Utterly chaotic life, unable to work, form or maintain any relationships, meds keep his positive symptoms (hallucinations) minimised but do nothing for the negative symptoms (all the inability to function "normally" type stuff), if & only if he takes is meds regularly
Has been evicted after council safety officers declared his home a danger (unsanitary & fire risk)
Has been removed by police when he was threatening another family member (police were absolutely AMAZING with him)
He has run away from help because when off his meds; every blue light is police coming to get him & punish him, he can hear voices telling him people with hurt him, he thinks people are signalling with their hands when talking to him to get other people to attack him

Purely due to having a family member with the love, money, time & understanding of the system he has stayed off the streets.

Lots of people in his situation don't have someone fighting for them (or no longer have someone - it's very hard to sustain, I think it can only come from real love as once someone has tried to attack you & you never ever get anything from them love/compassion etc it gets harder & harder not to walk away)

Now do you get it?

Are you really so self absorbed that you can't understand this?

Other people - wives and DC - can’t put up with alcoholics and boot them out.

Addict behaves worse and worse, booted from flat, booted from friends, booted from hostel, ends up on pavement.

Family still paying off damage addict did, bringing up their DC for them, relatives recovering from addict’s physical and mental attacks etc., don’t have the time/money to rescue addict. Neither do friends also licking their wounds.

Addict stays on pavement. Being a victim doesn’t mean you’re a nice person.

My SIL's ex. He could never hold down a full-time job and was a bit of a deadbeat. He started out drinking and smoking weed, but then ended up on meth. He had his own place but got kicked out, then he was living at my PIL's because my SIL got pregnant with him.

After the baby was born, both parents were addicts and behaving erratically/violently so they had to leave and ended up sofa surfing. They were financing the meth with shoplifting and running drugs for dealers but kept getting arrested. Gradually they ran out of people they could turn to, especially as they were stealing from them/screwing them over.

Their relationship broke down and SIL went back home. His family wanted nothing to do with him so he ended up sleeping in his car, then when that was taken away he ended up homeless and sleeping rough.

Do you really not understand?

I've been homeless 4 times as a result of my own mental illness

I have ocd primarily but at times I've experienced psychosis, hallucinations, panic attacks, severe depression that have made it literally impossible to function - as in cannot string 2 words together as a THOUGHT let alone speech and unable to process actions as simple as walking, eating...

Incredibly debilitating AND there is very little support what mental health services there are, are HUGELY overwhelmed, underfunded and under resourced.

Training in Mh for hcps is woefully inadequate- I've been assigned cpns with NO experience in dealing with someone with severe ocd and do more harm than good, I've had meds chopped and changed at the whim of gps, I've been refused support because I've been lied about BY hcps who didn't like that I knew more about my condition and how it affected me than they did

Certainly landlords and councils and housing associations barely understand mental illness but they're also not getting support to do so or funding to allow them to support the mentally ill.

When very ill I've been cognitively unable to manage money, too anxious to even check my bank balance and have run up debts when I wasn't totally in touch with reality.

Family and friends IF they stick around (most don't) also don't have the training or expertise to help and may be ltd in what help they can provide due to their own circumstances.

I've been VERY lucky (so far) that I haven't been street homeless through a combination of having a child in my care when homelessness hit (they mostly let me keep care of her except when I was at my most ill) and being able to "sofa surf" with certain very kind, very understanding loved ones, forever grateful to those people.

It's terrifying - and it's not that unlikely to happen to ANYONE you never know what's around the corner. Mental illness can hit anybody without warning. Most frightening example I knew of was a mother in a post natal psychosis stage, power cut happened which freaked her right out and she panicked about how to keep baby warm and almost put him in the gas oven (seemed perfectly logical to her at the time) luckily partner and baby's dad got home just as she was about to do so, no previous signs she was this far gone, and stopped her and got her the help she needed. She now has no memory of this event in experiential terms she knows it happened cos she's been told but she has no memories of that week (roughly) she was so ill

People forget their meds, or have trouble getting hold of them due to mix ups etc and with some conditions missing even one or 2 days worth can send them spiralling.

A friend of mine with bipolar disorder got caught out with a bank holiday/repeat prescription mix up and ended up on a manic "high" that whole weekend that caused her to spend all her money and then some in a casino! She isn't a gambler at all usually this is just how it affected her that one time, couldn't make the rent once she was on an even keel and was VERY lucky that her mothers church stepped in there (she paid them back when she could) or she could very well have become homeless if she didn't have that support

It really just takes a series of bad luck...

Can happen to anyone

I know what you’re asking OP and it’s a bit of catch 22. People are usually homeless because they can’t get on with their parents, when you look at the age range it’s people whose parents are likely still alive. It’s Not always the parents fault but toxic families do exist.
The pain of dealing with this in itself can lead to mental illness such a depression or “acting out” tendencies. More often this pain is then masked with self medicating (drugs/alcohol).

I’m not sure why this isn’t itself leads to homelessness as it doesn’t really affect book balancing abilities. But drugs can be expensive and can lead to evictions, etc. it’s just a cycle.

I cannot praise enough the additional support that the government has provided for homeless people during the pandemic. Of course it shouldn’t have taken the pandemic for these measures to be put in place , but there has been a major effort to get people into hotels , which makes it so much easier for them to then apply for and hold down jobs.
But ultimately If young people refuse to live with an abusive family of origin, they can’t just move back in with parents or ask to be subbed for a month while they get themselves together .

The type of people who don't open post or the door or who let people into their home who they really shouldn't. Don't attend meetings eg job centre or tenancy or doctor, because can't for whatever reason. Bullied by neighbours who wants free housing (the other person's!) or money for drugs because lend us your my mate aren't you (and I'll beat you up if you don't). Don't understand how the various systems for getting help work, don't realise there's help out there, no good at advocating for themselves, lack insight into their problems so then can't explain their problems to officials. The constant jumping through hoops, form filling, justifying their existence etc that people have to do to get help and an inability to do or cope with doing those things. Can't make ordinary friends so make bad ones, because can't recognise they're bad or because anybody's better than nobody. Addiction from self medicating because can't bear symptoms or to escape their reality, dealers don't want them to quit either.

Or just living hand to mouth, getting ill, missing one signing on session at job centre, getting sanctioned, benefits cut, can't pay utilities, debt collection additional charges, either pay debt or take drugs to avoid stress or both because they know if they pay up they can't afford rent anyway, then choice between rent and food, food wins, can't clear rent areas because there was never any spare money before that one missed appointment that lead to cuts and debts and the slippery slope of addiction, tenancy not renewed, no reference, can't get another place, no job, no ability to work due to MH or addiction (if there ever was ability anyway), not knowing how to claim benefits on the street or being able to do so, begging unsuccessful, starvation, hypothermia.

The list of reasons how it comes about and the exact trajectory to death is as varied as people are.

Mental illness can happen to anyone.

We need to reach out to people and help others. Even if they are not sociably accepted. There will be circumstances that lead to the mental disorder.

seriously? you can't possibly imagine for yourself how someone with a drug or alcohol additction might become homeless? Or someone with a serious and enduring mental illness? You really need to ask the question???

@WildPoinsettia excellent post. Of note, among young males: lending money to people so they don’t get beaten up, plus continuing to take drugs because the “click” they are involved in becomes their support network and the dealers often have a “welcome me Cassa es tu cassa” atmosphere , sometimes supplying meals even! which is attractive to people from broken homes.

An old employee at dh's work ended up homeless and sadly eventually died whilst homeless. Dh didn't know him but knew of him. He'd been fairly high up in the business, earning a good salary.

He drank a lot and it got out of hand. Was an alcoholic, it lead eventually to him losing his wife, then his home and also in the end his job - he just couldn't hold any of it together and declined support with his addiction. He had no money and nothing left in his life to hold on to except the alcohol. He ended up homeless and was still drinking to excess and potentially drugs became involved too. He ended up dying on the streets, in the same city centre as his old work place. Very sad.