It is local decent people like you Pat, that keep me from totally writing off the Republican Party. You understand the need, and interestingly enough, you understand the difference between mental illness, whatever that is, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I think the local Poverty and Homelessness Board is a startlingly effective example of a large group of dynamic people getting things done. It should be studied by others. It is effective both because it went to great lengths to get hard workers to sit down together, but because it had the buy in of the city and county, and major agencies. I am grateful to have served on it for a couple of years.
Problems get solved by real people willing to dive and and do the work. Too often words substitute for action. 
I have no doubt that, in this one narrow regard, the future will be better than the past.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon