It’s been about three weeks since I hit the road with my dog, Millie, following the recent wave of layoffs. Getting let go forced me to reconsider my career, and honestly, it might be the best thing for me. I’m currently traveling south from Oregon, hitting skate parks and reconnecting with friends and family down the West Coast.

For the last eight years, I worked in healthcare and human services. I started at the bottom, working one-on-one with clients and feeling like I was making a real difference. Within five months, I rose to management and stayed there for the remainder of my career. But while the pay doubled, the personal toll was ten times worse. Working primarily in substance abuse treatment and homeless services—realms I have personal experience with from my younger years—I saw a much darker side of the industry.

Looking back a decade, I often grieve for the person I was when I was struggling with addiction and sleeping on the streets of Portland. Back then, even when things were tough, I had an optimism that the world was rooting for my potential. After years as a "staff member," I’ve lost that belief. While most frontline workers want the best for people, the individuals running these organizations often see clients as nothing more than dollar signs.

As a manager of multiple companies and organizations over the years, my jobs became less about helping people and more about insurance reimbursements/budget restrictions/just whatever to make sure that the owners saw maximum profits. 

Many will read this and say sure, this is America, these are companies, and this is what companies do, make money. Believe me, I 100% understand that. But I wasn't selling books or cars or something.  I was working for companies that were directly responsible for the mental health and well-being of other human beings. And it was just the sheer disregard for humanity at the very top of so many different organizations that really left me with a bad taste and a completely different perspective.  It's not okay for the primary focus to be profit when the company is dealing with human beings and their mental health.  That also has to factor in somewhere as being something that's equally as important.   But it didn't.

If it was their first time, second time or third time in treatment, we needed focus on making sure that we got them next time as well. If they've been here more times than that, or if they've been here long enough to where insurance is no longer willing to pay top dollars, we are wasting resources on this person.

I saw nonprofits focus on cycling through clients whose insurance would still pay, while discarding those whose coverage had "tapped out."  Yes.  Non-profits. Those who aren't supposed to be profiting.  They aren't supposed to care about stuff like that because the funding is there to operate regardless.   I sat in rooms where upper staff made bets on which client would relapse or overdose first. I saw facilities illegally take phones and wallets to keep people from leaving, and advertise mental  health care services that no one in the company was qualified to provide. Straight up lies told to people just to get them in the door.  I saw people paid illegal commissions based on the amount of clients that they would get in the door. Extra money paid per client as long as they stay in a certain amount of time. That may not sound like a big deal but that's actually totally against the law, there's a very specific bill outlawing it for a very good reason reasons.  This is the reality of the "no cures, only ongoing treatment" model.

From my own experience and what I’ve learned from experts—like the neurosurgeon who left the field after realizing the system is rigged against true healing (https://youtu.be/25LUF8GmbFU?si=rkNEXz5jog-mpNPU)—I’ve realized that the path to wellness is often much simpler than a lifetime of medical bills.

Breakdown:

People who heal- get good sleep every night, have low stress levels, eat a healthy (mostly vegetarian) diet, have a good social life/support network, and they do not smoke anything.

In reality, having or doing all of these things is not easy, but that doesn't take away from the simplicity of it all.

And since I mentioned that I also worked in homeless services, I'll just briefly say that I’ve seen the "Housing First" model work, but it only works for a specific demographic: those without severe addiction or mental health issues.  And unfortunately, based on at least what I've seen, homelessness itself causes mental health and addiction issues and from the time I spent out there, the majority of people that live outside struggle with one or both of the two. Without systemic change to zoning and property tax laws, we are just moving people in and out of apartments they aren't equipped to maintain, wasting millions, a cycle that has no end in sight.

The zoning laws need to change in order for the housing crisis to be taken care of. As well as some tax laws.  Currently, people invest in real estate which makes no sense to me. Real estate is a physical object that deteriorates and diminishes just like anything else. The land is what is valuable. And unfortunately, land owners are taxed very different differently depending on what they build on their land.  If a person owns a valuable piece of land and decides to build a 500 unit housing complex, housing 500 families, that person is taxed to hell and back, barely turning a profit, and often time is a small fire or raise insurance prices can put them in the negative, leading the building to be sold to most likely a bank or investment agency, furthering the problems that we deal with here in America. If someone takes that same piece of land, and instead of building apartments, they build a parking lot, they are rewarded greatly by hardly having to pay any tax on that land, basically almost turning into pure profit. This is why when you go to many downtown areas, you see parking lots everywhere. Unfortunately for land owners, and for so many people in the world, building affordable housing is basically a financial mistake.  Crisis can be solved with the swipe of a pen, changing a few laws, not spending any extra money, probably less money actually, the difference is it's just paid to different people for different purposes. And that doesn't make the rich very happy, so it isn't being done. If some random 30 something year old dude who went to community college can figure this out, I'm sure that it's known by many many capable important people who are keeping it from happening.  Everyone deserves a place to live, a place to be. The feeling of not having that is something that most don't experience but I can just tell you from personal experience, it is a terrible, shameful feeling. It makes you feel like you don't belong.

I’m clearly a little bitter, and I think it’s time for a change. I’ve spent so much time trying to help others that I’m not sure how to help myself. That’s why I’m on this trip. Millie is the perfect companion; she lets me vent without judgment, which is something we all need.

I’ll leave you with a song. I didn't write it this week—I'm focusing on gathering inspiration while traveling—but I made it recently and I’m proud of it. I’ve been so impressed with the community here; it’s nice to see that it doesn’t always have to be strictly about the music.

My name is Lane. It's nice to meet you all. Good luck out there.

Instagram/YouTube: @Lnknmusic
Bandcamp: http://lnkn.bandcamp.com

Tags: beats, chill, lofi, opxy, synth, teenage engineering, week 8 2026, View by:Laineken