Mentally Ill Homes?

 Used to be a huge, rambling park-like series of large, tall, secure, fully staffed red brick buildings on a hillside in the Coquitlam area. Everyone knew that those with mental illnesses that required treatment, care, safety and recreation by professionals would go there, be there, and that a full variety of medical treatment was  available in a private place, government funded.  We called it Essondale, but the original name for the men's facility in 1913 was titled, Hospital For The Mind. Later, it was Essondale, and still later, Riverview. The institution was not well regarded then, or is now historically, due to its former, accommodations and treatments. The treatment for the mentally ill, those days, seemed cruel but it continues to be in some ways, for some patients today, still a form of "shock" therapy. Methods have changed and it is carried out in kinder but still effective methods. No longer do residents of such places house people in dormitory style rooms with "bars" on the windows. While many feel that we need to reinstate such services to "get the mentally ill off the streets" in protecting them from becoming prey to criminals, others know that some form of better care is needed to prevent incidents that can be dangerous to patients and others plying city streets. What sort of care that might be, remains, only discussion. Prison is no place for the mentally ill to receive help. What needs attention vitally, is how to remedy the increasing occurrence of stabbings and assaults by unstable persons. It is a conundrum between what is freedom of choice and what is truly needed to help. It is heavily evident however that too many persons with mental illness, suffer prison stays and often when released, commit attacks on the public who should be able to go about feeling safe. The problem can no longer be tolerated or ignored. When people have to go about in fear of being waylaid sadly by mentally ill persons who are sent back to the public sphere, by those thinking they will be able to manage their medications, it's time to fix what was thought to be fixed in 1913 at the Hospital For The Mind.