The title is mine. The NYT's is far too vague for this topic. Because frankly, this is horrifying. This is the same ideology as is behind Trump's Executive Order And honestly looks a lot like a...
The title is mine. The NYT's is far too vague for this topic. Because frankly, this is horrifying. This is the same ideology as is behind Trump's Executive Order
And honestly looks a lot like a concentration camp to me. Or a psychiatric prison. Or a labor camp. Or a place where undesirables disappear.
No evidence of a work requirement so labor camp wouldn't be accurate at least for now. It very much depends on the details that the guy in charge doesn't want to share.
No evidence of a work requirement so labor camp wouldn't be accurate at least for now. It very much depends on the details that the guy in charge doesn't want to share.
I guess the NYT didn't want to take sides when it's not open yet. But I think we should be suspicious. If it's voluntary and it's any good then Utah shouldn't have any trouble keeping it full? If...
what supporters call a services campus and critics deem a detention camp.
I guess the NYT didn't want to take sides when it's not open yet.
But I think we should be suspicious. If it's voluntary and it's any good then Utah shouldn't have any trouble keeping it full? If anything, there should be a wait list. If they can't keep a voluntary treatment center full then it's a bad sign.
No I'm not playing this game. . You asked "why does it have to be involuntary" and I was stunned, because either you didn't read the article or you didn't understand it. So as clear as possible,...
Exemplary
No I'm not playing this game. . You asked "why does it have to be involuntary" and I was stunned, because either you didn't read the article or you didn't understand it. So as clear as possible, the answer is ***BECAUSE THEY WANT IT TO BE INVOLUNTARY. *** That is the whole point. Asking why it has to be that way is like asking why ICE has to be violent. It doesn't. They are choosing to be. I won't even quote the critics just the planners' goals and the reporting.
Trump wants it:
He said the administration would “open up large parcels of inexpensive land” where “dangerously deranged” people “can be relocated and their problems identified.”
And his housing secretary:
Asked in the confirmation process if he supported “relocation camps” for homeless people, Scott Turner, the housing secretary, did not reject the idea.
As for this specific location:
They also vow stern measures to move homeless people to the remote site and force many of them to undergo treatment,
The Utah plan returns to an earlier “treatment first” model that conditions aid on sobriety or compliance with psychiatric treatment.
As Mr. Shumway describes it, nearly two-thirds of the 1,300 homeless people potentially sent to the site could be there for involuntary treatment. About 400 beds would be set aside for psychiatric treatment. Another 400 beds would provide substance abuse treatment “as an alternative to jail,” he said, with entry and exit “not voluntary.”
Mr. Shumway’s vision would require expanding civil commitment, the process by which a person can be forced to accept mental health treatment.
Utah’s plan is novel in that it combines elements of a homeless shelter and a psychiatric hospital, sharply expanding involuntary treatment.
With outdoor sleeping banned, removal to the edge of town may become the only way some homeless Utahns can avoid jail.
Planners say the facility will also hold hundreds of mentally ill homeless people under court-ordered civil commitment
Except let's hear from a community member, one of the local homeless people:
But when shown a rendering of the site, she was skeptical. “OK, so straight up, this reminds me of a concentration camp,” she said. “Trying to get all the homeless in one area by the airport. I mean — would we be able to leave of our own free will?”
So, no, I'm not playing the "wait and see maybe it won't be so bad" game when what they want to do is literally illegal under current civil commitment laws and they're going forward anyway.
I will not be so cowardly as the NYT. My expectations have been sadly met here however so please don't bother making the case of why this might be ok if we just let them build it, implement it, and see what the courts say while being "suspicious" instead of explicitly critical.
This plan is disgusting as intended and cannot be saved by waiting to see if it isn't so bad when it's running. And it is in line with the equally disgusting executive order and is exactly what people like myself predicted and feared.
Obviously this is a Trump-era policy and they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt (due to their past history of manufacturing doubt to hide their atrocities and delay a rectification), but on a...
Obviously this is a Trump-era policy and they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt (due to their past history of manufacturing doubt to hide their atrocities and delay a rectification), but on a theoretical basis involuntary commitment is not only not bad, but is sorely needed since the neoliberal-era of gutting our mental asylums, on the rationale that not all of the patients are complete lunatics. Frankly it was a mistake, and the term "involuntary treatment" is not spooky.
Again, none of this applies to Trump because they're ghouls who won't stop Committing Crimes (and more importantly, doing horrible things that are deliberately cruel).
Since the topic is about this specific situation in relation to the Trump executive order and whether or not it would be voluntary given the intent of those building this, I didn't really address...
Since the topic is about this specific situation in relation to the Trump executive order and whether or not it would be voluntary given the intent of those building this, I didn't really address involuntary commitment in general.
I do not believe in it as a solution for homelessness.
I am involved in sending people to the hospital on an involuntary or "voluntold" basis regularly and work with them afterwards. When it's needed it can be literally life saving. But it can also be incredibly traumatic. Mostly we ( specifically American society) have agreed the latter is worth the trade off of the former. Not everyone who has experienced it agrees.
But without the "saving lives" level of trade off, I'm not nearly as keen on it. And most of it is very short term - days - with longer term treatment requiring a much higher level of proof. In Utah that requires a court hearing with rights for the defendant/patient.
And that's without even considering how traumatic even voluntary congregate shelters can be, and how you often lose your pets, and are split from your families based on gender oh wait, it's Utah, by "sex" in an imaginary binary only. And when people start talking about saving souls like in this article I start to have questions about religious expectations and requirements. That doesn't even get into how bad jails are - and how a locked campus substance abuse program that's explicitly coerced is not that much different.
I have no doubt this is actually about removing the "eyesore" that these people consider the homeless to be from the political level at least.
But my full thoughts on involuntary commitment are complex and off topic. The executive order pushes involuntary treatment for the homeless not because it's best practice but because they want to force people into being "fixed" and if it doesn't work they'll just keep forcing.
The rationale is sound when you consider that holding someone against their will without any laws broken breaks the 5th and 6th amendment. The historical context of the ways asylums were used...
but is sorely needed since the neoliberal-era of gutting our mental asylums, on the rationale that not all of the patients are complete lunatics.
The rationale is sound when you consider that holding someone against their will without any laws broken breaks the 5th and 6th amendment. The historical context of the ways asylums were used basically make it as untouchable as intelligence tests at voting booths. There's nothing wrong with that in a vacuum, but they were abused unto being taboo.
Anyone with genuine mental needs can go to a proper hospital or therapist. Them not affording it simply means we need to make sure they don't need to "afford" it. Something this regime is currently shutting down the government over. So there goes that line of logic.
Yes. So anyone truly concerned can take the time to prove insanity in court and then take it upon themselves (or any other caretaker who will vouch for them) to get them help. If that's too much...
Yes. So anyone truly concerned can take the time to prove insanity in court and then take it upon themselves (or any other caretaker who will vouch for them) to get them help.
If that's too much effort to support the homeless and get them off the streets the right way... well, people made their own choice there, didn't they? The price of freedom.
For the question being begged here: sure. The other route is the one we keep apparently trying: be "hard(er) on crime". But Police need so much reform that I'm not quite sure if "arresting the dangerous homeless" even makes top 5. Homeless aren't profitable to keep held prisoner, so many (violent or otherwise) end up back on the streets, because the incentives with the prison system is not to reform.
I'm all for proper prison reform if we want to take that route. But it may be just as hard.
Sorry, that was unclear. What I am asking is why does it need to be involuntary? If it's voluntary then they need to maintain some minimum standard of care to get people to stay.
Sorry, that was unclear. What I am asking is why does it need to be involuntary? If it's voluntary then they need to maintain some minimum standard of care to get people to stay.
It's a complicated issue. A portion of homeless people (or people experiencing homelessness, if you prefer) are not interested in moving off of the streets and/or seeking treatment, so no matter...
It's a complicated issue. A portion of homeless people (or people experiencing homelessness, if you prefer) are not interested in moving off of the streets and/or seeking treatment, so no matter how many resources you make available, they will remain on the street. Forcing people into treatment involuntarily is known as civil commitment.
As you can see from Wikipedia, attitudes towards civil commitment vary dramatically by country. As an example, fully a quarter of psychiatric patients in France were involuntarily committed. It used to be much more common in the US, but a supreme court decision in the 70s made it much more difficult, to the extent that it is now almost impossible.
Civil commitment is an extremely thorny issue. How do you balance the right to liberty with the recognition that someone needs care? And generally speaking, the homeless that refuse care are also the most disruptive and dangerous, so at what point does the good of society outweigh the rights of the individual? These are complex philosophical questions to which there are no easy answers.
It's worth noting the existing law in Utah per the article I'm going to have to look into France's system as it sounds concerningly flexible in reasons for commitment. A family member and two...
It's worth noting the existing law in Utah per the article
Under Utah’s current law, a judge must find that an individual is dangerous or gravely disabled, and patients have the right to an attorney and to cross-examine witnesses.
I'm going to have to look into France's system as it sounds concerningly flexible in reasons for commitment. A family member and two medical certifications is very different than being a danger to one's self or others for example. But it's not clear if this is indefinite or what restrictions there are on the certificates and my French is almost certainly not good enough to manage it. However 24 percent is probably not that high. Many people are held on short involuntary hospitalizations in the US for example.
However many of the subsections on that page don't actually provide any information on involuntary commitment in those countries so it's not super useful for comparison. The Netherlands only talks about "convicts", Japan just lists the law, Ireland links to another page. Germany works on the guardianship system, etc.
Yes, but there are probably a lot more who aren’t like that. If you can’t get enough of them to accept free housing and medical care, maybe there is something wrong with it. If it’s a good place...
Yes, but there are probably a lot more who aren’t like that. If you can’t get enough of them to accept free housing and medical care, maybe there is something wrong with it.
If it’s a good place to live, word should get around.
Drug addicts don’t want to live where there aren’t drugs. A large number of mentally unwell people are too disruptive to be allowed in the existing voluntary shelters and have been banned from them.
Drug addicts don’t want to live where there aren’t drugs. A large number of mentally unwell people are too disruptive to be allowed in the existing voluntary shelters and have been banned from them.
The best argument against involuntary treatment of people with mental health issues that could be treated voluntarily (i.e. no immediate risk of harm to self or others) is that it's actively...
The best argument against involuntary treatment of people with mental health issues that could be treated voluntarily (i.e. no immediate risk of harm to self or others) is that it's actively harmful.
There's a dearth of research in the area, but this study [PDF warning] indicates that suicide, overdose, and violence double for marginal risk patients involuntarily treated compared to other approaches.
Abstract:
Involuntary hospitalization of people experiencing a mental health crisis is a widespread practice, 2.4
times as common as death from cancer and as common in the U.S. as incarceration in state and federal prisons. The intent of involuntary hospitalization is to prevent individuals from harming themselves or others through incapacitation, stabilization, and medical treatment over a short period of time. Does involuntary hospitalization achieve its goals? We leverage quasi-random assignment of the evaluating physician and administrative data from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, to estimate the causal effects of
involuntary hospitalization on harm to self (proxied by death by suicide or overdose) and harm to others
(proxied by violent crime charges). For individuals whose cases are judgment calls, where some
physicians would hospitalize but others would not, we find that hospitalization nearly doubles both the
probability of dying by suicide or overdose and also nearly doubles the probability of being charged with
a violent crime in the three months after evaluation. We provide evidence of earnings and housing
disruptions as potential mechanisms. Our results suggest that, on the margin, the system we study is not achieving the intended effects of the policy.
The vast majority of homeless people would fall into that "marginal risk" group at worst. They're not in dramatic mental health crises. Their lives are difficult and painful, and people with more advantages don't want to encounter their visible suffering. Aside from addiction, if you ask them what they want, it's generally rational within the context of their circumstances.
My hot take is that the Utah proposal is just prison (likely a forced labor camp) with a veneer of medicine. The remote location and vagueness around funding, type of shelter, treatment practices, conditions for release, oversight, legal protections, etc. just make it more likely that people will be held outside public scrutiny and the rule of law - pretty much a concentration camp.
But that’s not who this is targeting is it? These are people who are not choosing voluntary care. You can’t just hand wave that away. This is California data, but...
mental health issues that could be treated voluntarily
But that’s not who this is targeting is it? These are people who are not choosing voluntary care.
Aside from addiction
You can’t just hand wave that away. This is California data, but
Only around 37% reported regular drug use in the prior six months. And 25% had never used drugs at any point in their lifetime. About 65% of people experiencing homelessness reported using illicit drugs regularly, or at least three times a week, at some point in their life.
37% is a very high number, and one can assume the rate including alcohol would be much higher.
It's targeting the homeless. So we should obviously not be targeting the homeless. It's a symptom. Are we ok with mandating any "illicit" drug user be pulled from their home and job, placed in a...
It's targeting the homeless.
About 42% of all participants said they began using drugs regularly before they became homeless for the first time, and 23% said they began using drugs regularly after becoming homeless for the first time.
So we should obviously not be targeting the homeless. It's a symptom. Are we ok with mandating any "illicit" drug user be pulled from their home and job, placed in a locked facility, losing their personal property, and mandated to get treatment? Or just the ones we are forced to see in the street? Once we start fucking with civil rights, it becomes a very thin line as we've seen in many places in the US.
Also like 50% of Californians drink and a quarter smoke weed, so we got a lot if we're expanding this to alcohol and cannabis
I feel that, in the view and purpose of those creating this camp, this is not considered to be a negative, but instead a benefit.
The best argument against involuntary treatment of people with mental health issues that could be treated voluntarily (i.e. no immediate risk of harm to self or others) is that it's actively harmful.
I feel that, in the view and purpose of those creating this camp, this is not considered to be a negative, but instead a benefit.
Smells like a modern-era debtors' prison to me. For such a long article, I didn't see anything in there about how people ultimately earn the right to be released back into the wild, after they've...
Smells like a modern-era debtors' prison to me.
For such a long article, I didn't see anything in there about how people ultimately earn the right to be released back into the wild, after they've been cured of their wicked ways.
The guy in charge waves away the specifics when the reporter asks
The guy in charge waves away the specifics when the reporter asks
Mr. Shumway allowed that planning was at an early stage, and many questions remained: What would happen to people who did not comply with the campus’s sobriety or treatment mandates? Would people who wished to leave be free to do so? Could sobriety requirements result in people losing subsidized housing and returning to homelessness?
“You’re looking for granularity in a blue-sky conversation,” Mr. Shumway said. He said he had presented the plans to federal officials and “got very positive signals.”
I’m a bit hesitant that it’s being run by Republicans and it seems to be casting a bit of a wide net, but I do in principle agree with the policy of greatly expanding involuntary care. In British...
I’m a bit hesitant that it’s being run by Republicans and it seems to be casting a bit of a wide net, but I do in principle agree with the policy of greatly expanding involuntary care.
In British Columbia we are building out a much smaller scale system, with a couple hundred total beds and tighter requirements. Perhaps I have greater trust in our fairly progressive government, but I am pretty supportive of what we are doing. Our streets are currently overrun with people who are dangerous to themselves and others. I have to deal with them on a daily basis. Involuntary care is the only option, because they are refusing voluntary care and prison is inappropriate for their needs.
If I understand that article the criteria they're using are basically the same level as currently exists in much of the US and they're opening a facility for people who are currently in a higher...
If I understand that article the criteria they're using are basically the same level as currently exists in much of the US
care and treatment for people experiencing mental illness so severe that it impacts the safety of themselves or those around them, and they cannot — or will not — be treated voluntarily.
and they're opening a facility for people who are currently in a higher level of hospitalization than needed. Not to ban homeless people from the street.
That's not the same as warehousing people using drugs as an alternative to jail in a locked facility without any indication of all the caveats they put in there. What this facility is wanting to do is currently not legal in Utah (wouldn't be legal in IL either.) I don't agree with "greatly" expanding involuntary treatment but neither does BC from what I can read.
The article linked from that one even makes it clear it's about improving quality of care. Maybe it's also awful but it's entirely different from what this facility is doing. We have several homeless encampments in town that have had to move since SCOTUS made it legal to kick them out despite a failure to provide enough shelter options. Utah's facility would want to round them all up, since it's illegal to sleep outside.
The title is mine. The NYT's is far too vague for this topic. Because frankly, this is horrifying. This is the same ideology as is behind Trump's Executive Order
And honestly looks a lot like a concentration camp to me. Or a psychiatric prison. Or a labor camp. Or a place where undesirables disappear.
Labor camp is the interpretation I've been hearing.
No evidence of a work requirement so labor camp wouldn't be accurate at least for now. It very much depends on the details that the guy in charge doesn't want to share.
I guess the NYT didn't want to take sides when it's not open yet.
But I think we should be suspicious. If it's voluntary and it's any good then Utah shouldn't have any trouble keeping it full? If anything, there should be a wait list. If they can't keep a voluntary treatment center full then it's a bad sign.
[Edited]
No I'm not playing this game. . You asked "why does it have to be involuntary" and I was stunned, because either you didn't read the article or you didn't understand it. So as clear as possible, the answer is ***BECAUSE THEY WANT IT TO BE INVOLUNTARY. *** That is the whole point. Asking why it has to be that way is like asking why ICE has to be violent. It doesn't. They are choosing to be. I won't even quote the critics just the planners' goals and the reporting.
Trump wants it:
And his housing secretary:
As for this specific location:
Except let's hear from a community member, one of the local homeless people:
So, no, I'm not playing the "wait and see maybe it won't be so bad" game when what they want to do is literally illegal under current civil commitment laws and they're going forward anyway.
I will not be so cowardly as the NYT. My expectations have been sadly met here however so please don't bother making the case of why this might be ok if we just let them build it, implement it, and see what the courts say while being "suspicious" instead of explicitly critical.
This plan is disgusting as intended and cannot be saved by waiting to see if it isn't so bad when it's running. And it is in line with the equally disgusting executive order and is exactly what people like myself predicted and feared.
Obviously this is a Trump-era policy and they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt (due to their past history of manufacturing doubt to hide their atrocities and delay a rectification), but on a theoretical basis involuntary commitment is not only not bad, but is sorely needed since the neoliberal-era of gutting our mental asylums, on the rationale that not all of the patients are complete lunatics. Frankly it was a mistake, and the term "involuntary treatment" is not spooky.
Again, none of this applies to Trump because they're ghouls who won't stop Committing Crimes (and more importantly, doing horrible things that are deliberately cruel).
Since the topic is about this specific situation in relation to the Trump executive order and whether or not it would be voluntary given the intent of those building this, I didn't really address involuntary commitment in general.
I do not believe in it as a solution for homelessness.
I am involved in sending people to the hospital on an involuntary or "voluntold" basis regularly and work with them afterwards. When it's needed it can be literally life saving. But it can also be incredibly traumatic. Mostly we ( specifically American society) have agreed the latter is worth the trade off of the former. Not everyone who has experienced it agrees.
But without the "saving lives" level of trade off, I'm not nearly as keen on it. And most of it is very short term - days - with longer term treatment requiring a much higher level of proof. In Utah that requires a court hearing with rights for the defendant/patient.
And that's without even considering how traumatic even voluntary congregate shelters can be, and how you often lose your pets, and are split from your families based on
genderoh wait, it's Utah, by "sex" in an imaginary binary only. And when people start talking about saving souls like in this article I start to have questions about religious expectations and requirements. That doesn't even get into how bad jails are - and how a locked campus substance abuse program that's explicitly coerced is not that much different.I have no doubt this is actually about removing the "eyesore" that these people consider the homeless to be from the political level at least.
But my full thoughts on involuntary commitment are complex and off topic. The executive order pushes involuntary treatment for the homeless not because it's best practice but because they want to force people into being "fixed" and if it doesn't work they'll just keep forcing.
The rationale is sound when you consider that holding someone against their will without any laws broken breaks the 5th and 6th amendment. The historical context of the ways asylums were used basically make it as untouchable as intelligence tests at voting booths. There's nothing wrong with that in a vacuum, but they were abused unto being taboo.
Anyone with genuine mental needs can go to a proper hospital or therapist. Them not affording it simply means we need to make sure they don't need to "afford" it. Something this regime is currently shutting down the government over. So there goes that line of logic.
If they were voluntarily entering treatment, this wouldn't even be a concern. The problem is people who aren't voluntarily entering treatment.
Yes. So anyone truly concerned can take the time to prove insanity in court and then take it upon themselves (or any other caretaker who will vouch for them) to get them help.
If that's too much effort to support the homeless and get them off the streets the right way... well, people made their own choice there, didn't they? The price of freedom.
For the question being begged here: sure. The other route is the one we keep apparently trying: be "hard(er) on crime". But Police need so much reform that I'm not quite sure if "arresting the dangerous homeless" even makes top 5. Homeless aren't profitable to keep held prisoner, so many (violent or otherwise) end up back on the streets, because the incentives with the prison system is not to reform.
I'm all for proper prison reform if we want to take that route. But it may be just as hard.
Sorry, that was unclear. What I am asking is why does it need to be involuntary? If it's voluntary then they need to maintain some minimum standard of care to get people to stay.
It's a complicated issue. A portion of homeless people (or people experiencing homelessness, if you prefer) are not interested in moving off of the streets and/or seeking treatment, so no matter how many resources you make available, they will remain on the street. Forcing people into treatment involuntarily is known as civil commitment.
As you can see from Wikipedia, attitudes towards civil commitment vary dramatically by country. As an example, fully a quarter of psychiatric patients in France were involuntarily committed. It used to be much more common in the US, but a supreme court decision in the 70s made it much more difficult, to the extent that it is now almost impossible.
Civil commitment is an extremely thorny issue. How do you balance the right to liberty with the recognition that someone needs care? And generally speaking, the homeless that refuse care are also the most disruptive and dangerous, so at what point does the good of society outweigh the rights of the individual? These are complex philosophical questions to which there are no easy answers.
It's worth noting the existing law in Utah per the article
I'm going to have to look into France's system as it sounds concerningly flexible in reasons for commitment. A family member and two medical certifications is very different than being a danger to one's self or others for example. But it's not clear if this is indefinite or what restrictions there are on the certificates and my French is almost certainly not good enough to manage it. However 24 percent is probably not that high. Many people are held on short involuntary hospitalizations in the US for example.
However many of the subsections on that page don't actually provide any information on involuntary commitment in those countries so it's not super useful for comparison. The Netherlands only talks about "convicts", Japan just lists the law, Ireland links to another page. Germany works on the guardianship system, etc.
It's because there are people who refuse voluntary care, but are still dangerous.
Yes, but there are probably a lot more who aren’t like that. If you can’t get enough of them to accept free housing and medical care, maybe there is something wrong with it.
If it’s a good place to live, word should get around.
Drug addicts don’t want to live where there aren’t drugs. A large number of mentally unwell people are too disruptive to be allowed in the existing voluntary shelters and have been banned from them.
The best argument against involuntary treatment of people with mental health issues that could be treated voluntarily (i.e. no immediate risk of harm to self or others) is that it's actively harmful.
There's a dearth of research in the area, but this study [PDF warning] indicates that suicide, overdose, and violence double for marginal risk patients involuntarily treated compared to other approaches.
Abstract:
The vast majority of homeless people would fall into that "marginal risk" group at worst. They're not in dramatic mental health crises. Their lives are difficult and painful, and people with more advantages don't want to encounter their visible suffering. Aside from addiction, if you ask them what they want, it's generally rational within the context of their circumstances.
My hot take is that the Utah proposal is just prison (likely a forced labor camp) with a veneer of medicine. The remote location and vagueness around funding, type of shelter, treatment practices, conditions for release, oversight, legal protections, etc. just make it more likely that people will be held outside public scrutiny and the rule of law - pretty much a concentration camp.
But that’s not who this is targeting is it? These are people who are not choosing voluntary care.
You can’t just hand wave that away. This is California data, but
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2025/02/429486/how-common-illegal-drug-use-among-people-who-are-homeless
37% is a very high number, and one can assume the rate including alcohol would be much higher.
It's targeting the homeless.
So we should obviously not be targeting the homeless. It's a symptom. Are we ok with mandating any "illicit" drug user be pulled from their home and job, placed in a locked facility, losing their personal property, and mandated to get treatment? Or just the ones we are forced to see in the street? Once we start fucking with civil rights, it becomes a very thin line as we've seen in many places in the US.
Also like 50% of Californians drink and a quarter smoke weed, so we got a lot if we're expanding this to alcohol and cannabis
I feel that, in the view and purpose of those creating this camp, this is not considered to be a negative, but instead a benefit.
Smells like a modern-era debtors' prison to me.
For such a long article, I didn't see anything in there about how people ultimately earn the right to be released back into the wild, after they've been cured of their wicked ways.
The guy in charge waves away the specifics when the reporter asks
I’m a bit hesitant that it’s being run by Republicans and it seems to be casting a bit of a wide net, but I do in principle agree with the policy of greatly expanding involuntary care.
In British Columbia we are building out a much smaller scale system, with a couple hundred total beds and tighter requirements. Perhaps I have greater trust in our fairly progressive government, but I am pretty supportive of what we are doing. Our streets are currently overrun with people who are dangerous to themselves and others. I have to deal with them on a daily basis. Involuntary care is the only option, because they are refusing voluntary care and prison is inappropriate for their needs.
If I understand that article the criteria they're using are basically the same level as currently exists in much of the US
and they're opening a facility for people who are currently in a higher level of hospitalization than needed. Not to ban homeless people from the street.
That's not the same as warehousing people using drugs as an alternative to jail in a locked facility without any indication of all the caveats they put in there. What this facility is wanting to do is currently not legal in Utah (wouldn't be legal in IL either.) I don't agree with "greatly" expanding involuntary treatment but neither does BC from what I can read.
The article linked from that one even makes it clear it's about improving quality of care. Maybe it's also awful but it's entirely different from what this facility is doing. We have several homeless encampments in town that have had to move since SCOTUS made it legal to kick them out despite a failure to provide enough shelter options. Utah's facility would want to round them all up, since it's illegal to sleep outside.