Well Dawn. The Australian governmnt may have no money to help you and your son, but you will be ecstatic to hear that each "refugee" is costing hundreds of thousands of taxpayer money to process, find accomodation for, and to counsel. I hope that you are not in public housing, because some well intentioned social worker is probably trying to figure out how to evict all of the Australians in order to place Nigerians or Albanians in them.

But we have to be careful of Kosovo Albanians. Many of us remember that two of them considered the accomadation which the Australian governent provided them at Singleton Army base was not up to scratch, and they demanded better accomadation.

And you wil be pleased to hear that there is now a Government program to counsel Bantu's, teaching them to sing and dance, presumably to keep them off the streets where they will not get into mischief.

But you and your son are going to get diddly squat, Dawn. This is because your skin is the wrong colour, which makes you a racist oppressor of the Third World, who's ancestors stole Australia from the blacks. All of those putitanical, evangelistic, tree hugging, self loathers are not going to champion the welfare of people like you. People like you should just sign the "sorry" book and hang your head in shame at the crimes committed by your planet raping race.

Your best bet is to paint your face a darker colour, put on a burkha, buy a boat, and land on Darwin beach. You will find no end of social workers and government departments falling all over themselves to help you out. You and your son might get stuck in a camp for a few months, but you can break any law you wish, get three squares a day, and get an army of taxpayer funded lawyers advising you on your rights.

You might even be able to get 800 grand to help your son by claiming that his schizophrenia was caused by the trauma of being incarcerated by the Australian government

The views expressed by the above poster are not necessarily those held by other regular contributors to OLO.

The author is correct about the lack of funding for decent housing options for those with chronic mental illness. Whilst those with intellectual disabilities appear reasonably well catered for with group homes and various supported accommodation, this is very hard to find for the mentally ill. The choice appears for be hostel type accommodation which does not provide the independence and dignity necessary for a decent life, or independent accommodation such as a state house. The difficulty with a state house is that the person often cannot manage the property and so ends up getting evicted, as well as the inevitable social isolation.
Although she did not elaborate on what she means by "intentional communities" I suspect that she is referring to a number of small houses built on the same property with some shared facilities and spaces to create a community of people, all living with similar difficulties. This would obviously make the provision of support services much easier and effective and eliminate the issue of social isolation. Employment services are in the same position. They will help the mentally ill get a mainstream job, but the person can seldom retain the position through the inevitable relapse of their illness. What is needed is sheltered employment that accepts that the person will be unable to work sometimes due to their illness. Mainstreaming just does not work.
I would however take issue with the assertion that woman bear the vast majority of the load of caring for the mentally ill.
I know many men who are the sole supporters of their mentally ill children and sometimes wives as well. Perhaps there are more women in this position but men are far from an insignificant minority. Perhaps the difference is their stoicism which renders them largely invisible.