Lesson Plan: The Debate Over Forced Mental Health Treatment
Grades 10-12
New York City is tackling the issue of homelessness and untreated mental illness with a controversial strategy: remove people from the streets and hospitalize them, whether they want to go or not. The strategy has been tried before. In the 1980s, a homeless woman named Joyce Brown, who called herself Billie Boggs, went to court to challenge her forced hospitalization. The case pitted civil liberties advocates against Mayor Edward I. Koch and his efforts to address homelessness, making national headlines. This lesson examines the history of forced mental health treatment, the ethical arguments for and against the process and alternative methods for treating challenging populations.
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