Homeless and Mentally Ill in America

Homelessness in the U.S. is on the rise, there are approximately 554,000 people who are experiencing homelessness in America today. What is even more disheartening is that approximately 140,000 of those individuals have a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, manic depression, or chronic depression.

One of the reasons for this increase is a decrease in hospital beds in psychiatric hospitals. Many psychiatric hospitals release patients before they are well enough to leave offering little or no after care, limited support, and no follow up . These individuals often have no place to go so they take to the streets living in shelters, parks, or under bridges. Wandering the street all day in the scorching heat of summer and the frigid cold of winter. Some of these individuals die on the streets. My friend Don is a homeless man with a mental illness living in Arizona, just last week he suffered from a heat stroke, the paramedics came out to treat him and thankfully he is ok but there are many this happens to and they don’t survive.

Why is this acceptable in the land of the free and the home of the brave? What will it take to ensure these people, who didn’t ask for a mental illness, get the support, compassion, and care they so desperately need and deserve?

In 2005 I was a mentally ill woman, homeless, in America. I sought out help before it reached that point, going to an organization that is supposed to help people like me. Their solution rather than get me into a psychiatric hospital was to take me to downtown Phoenix to live in the shelters. I was a sick woman, not a bad woman, just sick. I was delusional, paranoid, and manic. I could hardly take care of myself. I had people steal from me regularly at the shelters and a man who worked at the shelter, who was supposed to protect me, took me to his home and raped me. If it happened to me who else is this happening to.

I’m one of the lucky ones, I survived. I managed to get off the street and on a medication that put my symptoms in check. But what about those that don’t survive, what happens to them?

It’s time for America to stand up for and care about those in a less fortunate position than ourselves. We all need to do our part to care for our fellow humans it doesn’t need to be some grand gesture either it can be offering a bottle of water to someone who looks thirsty, buying a meal for a stranger, taking the time to talk to someone who is hurting. We all have something to offer.

I challenge you to be kind today.