>I have a serious medical condition. As best I can tell, this is a much more common root cause of homelessness than the addiction and mental health issues that get so much more attention.
I'm just now realizing that my (and possibly other's) unpleasant interactions with homeless people probably skewed my sense of how many homeless are mentally ill or drug addicted -- simply because those are the ones more likely to accost people on the street.
It's worth noting that I did not appear that competent to most people while I was homeless because I was so very ill. Although my condition is incurable, I'm vastly healthier these days.
My comments in online forums were frequently riddled with typos when I was homeless and often sounded like gibberish.
No matter how smart or well educated you are, being extremely ill will hurt your ability to perform. This gets compounded by situational factors if you are also homeless.
>I have a serious medical condition. As best I can tell, this is a much more common root cause of homelessness than the addiction and mental health issues that get so much more attention.
I'm just now realizing that my (and possibly other's) unpleasant interactions with homeless people probably skewed my sense of how many homeless are mentally ill or drug addicted -- simply because those are the ones more likely to accost people on the street.