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As a retired mental health worker (albeit not in Multnomah county), my concern is for those homeless adolescents who hang around pioneer square and scare the dickens out of people. How do we fix this? There will always be some kids who refuse all help, but most of them would gladly embrace help. Some need residential drug and alcohol treatment. Some need some sort of extended family in the form (probably) of a place to hang out, cook, sleep, and get some help learning to survive in the "normal" world. The one thing that would probably do the most would be to extend services to foster children who are "aging out" of the system. We cut most kids off with no funds and no place to be when they hit 18. Those kids are some who make up the "steet families". Ennough. This is a problem I'm still passionate about!

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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