I was just honestly stunned that so many homeless people were mentally ill. I'm sure that not all of them were, but it seemed that the vast majority of them were. From one story to the next, it could almost always be traced back to mental illness.

1. Their mental illness lead them to being unable to care for themselves and maintain employment, and also prevented them from being able to seek out medication and/or being able to seek out government assistance.

2. Their mental illness lead them to attempting to self-medicate, and the resulting addiction wound up being the straw that broke the camel's back.

3. Their mental illness issues ran in their blood, and their caregiver(s) had also been mentally ill and thus unable to help or provide the support they needed.

4. Their mental illness was met with scorn and ignorance by their relatives, so they did not receive support and compassion, only shunning and abandonment.

5. Their mental illness made them too fearful towards people and groups that could have helped, and those people/groups gave up on them almost immediately without trying to work with the issue of paranoia.

6. Their mental illness was ignored or downplayed by professionals until they reached critical mass, and then nobody was under any obligation to help them.

7. Their mental illness had been covert until they hit a major life crisis, such as being laid off or losing a loved one, and their life spiraled out of control while everyone assumed they would be "okay" and handle it like a mentally healthy person.

And just on and on. I would say with some conviction that the vast majority of homelessness (not all, but the vast majority) has ignored and untreated mental illness as its core cause.

I feel strongly that the prevailing ignorance and selfish scorn towards the mentally illness and the homeless is extremely similar for a reason, because the two are very deeply connected.