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Too often, when conversations about homelessness come up, someone says it: “Well, they’re all mentally ill.” It’s a comment tossed off as fact, but it reveals something deeper — not truth, but comfort. If homelessness is just the result of personal dysfunction, then no one has to admit it’s a failure of policy. But that claim isn’t true, and it’s more harmful than most people realize.
Yes, there’s overlap between homelessness and mental illness — but it’s nowhere near as universal as people assume. Research shows that roughly 22 percent of Oklahomans experiencing homelessness live with a serious mental health condition. That’s higher than the general population, but it’s still not a majority. Most people who lose their housing aren’t suffering from mental illness; they’re suffering from the math not adding up. They’re dealing with rent hikes, job loss, medical bills, or a lack of affordable housing options.
Mental illness can make housing instability harder, but it’s not the main cause. This narrative shifts attention away from the real issues — wages, rent, and policy.
When we collapse the complex realities of homelessness into a single story about mental illness, we do two kinds of harm. First, we erase the many people who became unhoused simply because they couldn’t afford a roof over their heads. And second, we reinforce the idea that people with mental illness are somehow “other” — that they’re broken, dangerous, or incapable of living independently. That kind of thinking fuels stigma, not solutions.
Even if institutionalization were the answer — and it’s not — we couldn’t do it. The system simply doesn’t exist at the scale people imagine. We don’t have enough mental health providers or psychiatric hospital beds to meet the needs of those actively seeking care. And the idea that we can or should start institutionalizing unhoused people en masse, without regard for consent, isn’t just unrealistic; it’s a return to policies we now recognize as abusive. It won’t solve homelessness. It will simply hide it behind locked doors.
It’s also important to understand that the relationship between the two runs both ways. Housing instability can create or worsen mental health challenges — chronic stress, depression, anxiety, and trauma all increase when people lose safe shelter. For many, mental illness is an outcome of homelessness, not its origin. That’s why real solutions must begin with stable housing and then layer in care and support, rather than the other way around.
If we really care about addressing both homelessness and mental health, we need to stop treating them as the same problem. Forced institutionalization and criminalization don’t heal anyone. What does make a difference is access to attainable outpatient mental health care, medication, therapy, case management, and stable housing. When people have a place to live and the ability to get treatment on their own terms, they thrive. When they don’t, they cycle endlessly through shelters, jails, and emergency rooms — the most expensive and least humane “solutions” we have.
Not every unhoused person needs treatment. Many just need a job that pays enough to live on, rent they can afford, or a landlord who doesn’t discriminate. And those who do need mental health support deserve genuine care – not coercion.
Homelessness isn’t a diagnosis, and mental illness isn’t a crime. Both deserve compassion and investment. It’s time to build a system that recognizes the difference — and meets people where they are, instead of punishing them for where they’ve ended up.
