The homeless mentally ill

Posted on November 21, 2019 by babbityjean

The conference room in Trieste fell silent.  Attendees couldn’t believe their eyes.  On the big screen were photos of Hollywood residents living in the street, huddled under blankets and covered with grime.  Their mental and addiction problems were evident.  The photos depicted the status of the homeless in Hollywood and greater Los Angeles where one quarter have mental illnesses, and thousands are endlessly shuffled from streets to jails to hospitals and back to the street again.  An average of 3 die every day.  About 5,000 mentally ill people are locked up in jails at any given time.  In the richest country on the planet, this was the underbelly of the capital of film and imagination.

The Los Angeles Times recently told the story of a woman named Kerry Morrison who had seen enough.  She quit her job to devote full-time, unpaid, to her cause.  She joined boards, reached out to mental health professionals, researched mental health policy and what went wrong in the United States, and checked out programs in other U.S. cities and in Europe.  It was her trip to Trieste in NE Italy that turned her despair into hope.  In Trieste she found a mental health model in which every patient was looked after and no one was left to pitch a tent and fend for himself.

When mental institutions were closed in Italy and the United States about 40 years ago, Trieste innovated while the U.S. abdicated on the promise of community clinics.  Under the leadership of a psychiatrist named Franco Basaglia, Trieste built a coordinated network of treatment centers, embraced patients as full-fledged members of the community, invited family members to participate in recovery, built relationships with employers who hired patients, and didn’t let bureaucracy or billing entanglements sabotage good outcomes.

When someone has a psychotic episode in Trieste and there’s a call for help, usually a mental health team responds, not the police, and the team often has already built a relationship with the client.  The doors of community mental health facilities in Trieste are not locked; if patients choose to leave, staff members keep in contact with them to be sure they remain connected to help.  Involuntary commitments are rare; when people have easy access to regular care and begin to know and trust health care providers, they are easier to treat.  They are less likely to resist therapy and medication, and their conditions are less likely to deteriorate.

Ms. Morrison brought a delegation of mental health and government representatives to observe the system in Trieste.  In five days, there they didn’t see a single homeless person in Trieste, a city that also does not have a significant drug epidemic.  It will be extremely challenging to bring Trieste’s model to Los Angeles where so many with serious mental illness also have debilitating addictions…and live in tents (if they’re lucky) on the street.  Funding and staff shortages are major obstacles. “We have 40 times the population of Trieste and 50 times the challenges,” Morrison stated.

But she is undaunted.  The Los Angeles delegation will start with a pilot project.   It will involve at least a year of planning—identifying urgent care and community health centers, recruiting businesses to participate, convincing residents that improvements will become a community asset, hiring clinicians and outreach teams, and finding enough housing to give the pilot a fighting chance.

Posted in Abitudini, California, Differenze culturali, English, Italia, La Gente, Medicina, Trieste | 1 Comment

Ivrea e Olivetti

Posted on November 14, 2019 by babbityjean

Nel 2018, l’UNESCO ha conferito lo status di Patrimonio dell’Umanità ad Ivrea, una città nelle colline pedemontane delle Alpi in Piemonte.  Conosciuta come la “Città industriale del ventesimo secolo”, Ivrea si trova a circa un’ora di treno da Torino.  Era la sede di Olivetti, un’azienda produttrice di macchine da scrivere, macchine contabili e calcolatrici.

Ciò che distingueva Ivrea ed Olivetti era la visione di Adriano Olivetti (1901 – 1960), figlio del fondatore, uomo ben istruito, umanista e con un forte interesse per l’urbanistica, il design e l’architettura.  La sua esperienza precedente in una fabbrica—in particolare, il senso dell’alienazione e la monotonia delle azioni ripetute—lo portò a rendersi conto che era importante liberare l’uomo dal duro lavoro degradante.  Assunse i migliori architetti in stile modernista per progettare fabbriche, abitazioni, mense, uffici e studi.  Erano spazi gloriosi, ariosi e pieni di luce destinati a dare ai lavoratori non solo una vista sulle montagne, ma anche uno spirito positivo e un senso del futuro.

Olivetti ha anche assunto famosi designer per lavorare sui suoi prodotti; alcuni sono diventati  icone del design italiano, come la macchina da scrivere Lettera 22 del 1949 e il computer mainframe Elea 9003 del 1958.  La portatile Lettera 22 divenne la preferita di scrittori americani come Thomas Pynchon, Sylvia Plath, Gore Vidal e Cormac McCarthy.

I dipendenti Olivetti venivano trattati bene. Se volevano, potevano alloggiare in case e appartamenti costruiti dagli Olivetti. Alle nuove madri venivano concessi 10 mesi di congedo di maternità e i bambini potevano andare gratuitamente all’asilo nido. I dipendenti avevano l’opportunità di frequentare lezioni presso scuole di commercio in loco; la biblioteca di 30.000 volumi comprendeva libri nuovi e riviste attuali. Le ore di pranzo erano piene di discorsi ed esibizioni di attori, musicisti e poeti. Nel mese di luglio era stato istituto un giorno festivo per consentire ai lavoratori delle campagne circostanti di occuparsi di piccole aziende agricole. I dipendenti, inoltre prendevano pensioni sostanziali al momento del pensionamento.

Per un certo periodo, Ivrea è stata la città aziendale più progressista e di successo al mondo, rappresentando una nuova forma di idealismo aziendale. In America, città come Pullman, Illinois, sono sorte a causa di lavoratori a basso salario privi di diritti e servizi di base come i trasporti. All’epoca il pensiero era che, più un dipendente dipendeva dall’azienda per cui lavorava, maggiore era il controllo dell’azienda. I lavoratori non hanno osato chiedere un congedi per malattia o una migliore assistenza sanitaria; certamente, non hanno mai scioperato.

Mentre molte città aziendali erano patriarcali, Ivrea era diversa … almeno per un certo periodo. Olivetti divenne un attore principale nel “miracolo” del ventesimo secolo quando l’Italia stava uscendo dalle profondità del fascismo e della seconda guerra mondiale, per diventare l’ottava economia più forte del mondo. L’economia italiana raggiunse l’apice negli anni ’60 quando la sede produttiva della Fiat a Torino divenne una delle più grandi fabbriche automobilistiche in Europa. Allo stesso modo Olivetti era un simbolo del “miracolo”.

Ma nel 1970 le cose iniziarono a cambiare. Adriano morì e suo fratello Roberto, che aveva rilevato l’azienda, non aveva la stessa visione. Le persone si stavano spostando dalle macchine da scrivere ai dispositivi elettronici e il successo di Olivetti in tale processo si arrestò.   Il geniale programmatore capo di Olivetti morì in un incidente d’auto; i teorici della cospirazione lo attribuirono agli agenti segreti americani che non volevano che i progressi del calcolo cadessero nelle mani di un paese che era perennemente sull’orlo del comunismo. La tecnologia e i cambiamenti economici frenarono la crescita delle città manifatturiere italiane e americane: recessioni ricorrenti costrinsero a tagliare i costi in tutti i settori, il lavoro più recentemente è stato delocalizzato in paesi più economici, e aziende come Fiat e Olivetti hanno iniziato a licenziare i lavoratori.

Al suo apice, Olivetti contava oltre 73.000 lavoratori in tutto il mondo; oggi ne ha circa 400. Ivrea ha perso un quarto della sua popolazione. Vedendola oggi non potresti immaginarla come l’ex capitale del design industriale. Una ex-fabbrica è stata convertita in palestra. Solo uno degli edifici per uffici è ancora in uso. Ci sono cartelli che indicano alcuni edifici storici, che sono diventati monumenti di un’antica utopia.

Nella sua elezione a Patrimonio Mondiale, l’UNESCO ha affermato che Uvrea “esprime una visione moderna del rapporto tra produzione industriale e architettura”. E nel suo libro Città dell’Uomo pubblicato nel 1960 settimane prima della sua morte, Adriano Olivetti auspicava a uno sviluppo urbano “a misura d’uomo”, con l’obiettivo di “armonia tra vita privata e vita pubblica, tra lavoro e casa, tra centri di consumo e centri di produzione”. Obiettivi ancora oggi lodevoli.

Posted in Architecture, Differenze culturali, Foto, Italia, Italiano, La Moda, Piemonte, Storia | 1 Comment

Ivrea and Olivetti

Posted on November 14, 2019 by babbityjean

In 2018, UNESCO conferred World Heritage status on Ivrea, a city in the foothills of the Alps in the Piedmont region.  Known as the “Industrial City of the 20th Century,” Ivrea is about an hour by train north of Turin.  It was the home of Olivetti, a manufacturer of typewriters, accounting machines and calculators.

What set Ivrea and Olivetti apart was the vision of Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960), son of the founder, who was well-educated, humanistic, and had a strong interest in city planning, design and architecture.  His prior experience in a factory—in particular, the sense of alienation and monotony from repeated action—led him to realize that it was important to free man from degrading drudgery.  He hired the best architects in the Modernist style to design the factories, housing, canteens, offices and study areas.  They were glorious, airy, light-filled spaces meant to give workers not only views of the mountains, but also a positive spirit and a sense of the future.

He also hired famous designers to work on his products; some of them, such as the 1949 Lettera 22 typewriter and the 1958 Elea 9003 mainframe computer, became icons of Italian design.  The portable Lettera 22 became the favorite of such American writers as Thomas Pynchon, Sylvia Plath, Gore Vidal and Cormac McCarthy.

Olivetti employees were treated well.  If they liked, they were housed in Olivetti-constructed homes and apartments. New mothers were granted 10 months of maternity leave, and children received free day care.  Employees were given the opportunity to take classes at on-site trade schools; the 30,000-volume library included new books and current magazines.  Lunchtime hours were filled with speeches and performances from visiting actors, musicians and poets.  The month of July was a holiday to allow workers in the surrounding countryside to tend to small farms.  And employees received substantial pensions upon retirement.

For a time, Ivrea was the most progressive and successful company town in the world representing a new form of corporate idealism.  In America, company towns like Pullman, Illinois arose as a result of low-wage workers lacking both rights and basic amenities like transportation.  The thinking at the time was that the more dependent an employee was on the company he worked for, the more control the company had.  Workers didn’t dare ask for sick leave or better health care; certainly, they didn’t go on strike.

While many company towns were paternalistic, Ivrea was different…at least for a time. Olivetti became a principal player in the 20th-century “miracle” when Italy climbed out of the depths of fascism and World War II to become the eighth largest economy in the world.  The Italian economy peaked in the ‘60s when Fiat’s production headquarters in Turin became one of the largest car factories in Europe.  Olivetti was likewise a symbol of the “miracle.”

But by 1970 things were changing.  Adriano had died and his brother Roberto, who took over the company, lacked the same vision.  The world was moving from typewriters to electronic devices, and Olivetti’s success stalled in the transition. Olivetti’s brilliant chief computer programmer died in a car accident; conspiracy theorists attributed it to American secret agents who did not want computing advances falling into the hands of a country that was perpetually on the verge of Communism.  Technology and economic changes were stunting the growth of both Italian and American manufacturing towns:  recurring recessions forced cost cutting across all industries, labor was outsourced to cheaper countries, and companies like Fiat and Olivetti began laying off workers.

At its peak, Olivetti had more than 73,000 workers worldwide; today it has around 400.  Ivrea has lost a quarter of its population.  Seeing it today you would have no idea that it was the former capital of industrial design.  A former factory has been converted to a gym.  Only one of the office buildings is still in use.  There are placards pointing to a few landmark buildings, which have become monuments to a former utopia.

In its World Heritage designation, UNESCO said that Uvrea “expresses a modern vision of the relationship between industrial production and architecture.”  And in his book Città dell’Uomo (City of Man) published in 1960 weeks before he died, Adriano Olivetti called for urban development “on a human scale,” with the goal of “harmony between private life and public life, between work and the home, between centers of consumption and centers of production.”  Still laudable goals today.

Posted in Architecture, English, Foto, Italia, La Moda, Piemonte, Storia | 3 Comments