The Los Angeles Times (8/7, Holland) reports in a piece focused on alleviating homelessness in greater Los Angeles that approximately “half of homeless people with severe mental illness also have problems with alcohol or drugs,” homelessness researcher Dennis Culhane, PhD, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has found. Substance use “does not cause severe mental illness,” however. Instead, “homeless people with untreated mental illness” use substances to medicate themselves to alleviate symptoms.
Related Links:
— “Q&A Mental illness and homelessness are connected. But not how you might think,” Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2017.