Reader says , “It is against the law to commit anyone involuntarily unless he/she is a danger to him/herself or to others”

file photo by Boyd Loving

“As several posters said, “We’ve offered help. He doesn’t want it.” It is against the law to commit anyone involuntarily unless he/she is a danger to him/herself or to others. Some people are so disturbed that they just want to be left alone. He’s not standing in the street begging, is he? When it gets hotter, or colder, he may decide he can use some help and will accept it then. It is also against the law to publicly urinate or defecate. We could legally have him picked up, and then what? The United States has lots of agencies designed to help people such as this. But they have to be willing to take the help. There used to be a drop in center, run privately by donations, to help mentally disturbed people with no questions asked in Hackensack. They lost their lease–but they couldn’t have helped this man. Homeless shelters will take him for a month unless he is an addict or is constantly drunk. There are actually some small shelters for those people. He is probably a result of NJ choosing to close psychiatric hospitals and throw their residents onto the public for assistance. I well know that I am not offering any solution to his presence. In reality, with the law the way it is, there is no solution. He most likely was living on the streets in another community and was literally picked up and dumped here. Someone mentioned that the “Black Lives Matter” group could take a real Black and, with much constant effort and concern be able to help him understand that he needs help and find help for him. That would certainly be a more fruitful use of their time than blocking streets and traffic and expecting everyone else in the world “to see it their way.” But, this group seems to be interested in making noise and proving that their “rights” can do away with others rights as they –think, not know, as they assume–that they are “educated” “with it” etc. What was the quote about nothing is achieved if it is only sought “through sound and fury”? That does seem to be all that they are capable of doing. They are young, yes, and the young always know what is best for the world until they are forced to quit living “in the world as they want it” and accept “the world that really exists today”.  “