COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
LOST IN THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY - I have a people watching habit. I don't remember names too well, but I rarely forget a face. Maybe it has to do with the above-average vision in my left eye (20/15); I pick up little details, stashing them away for reassembly later.
I especially tend to "keep an eye out" for the "street people"; they are a mystery to me and a source of great insight into the need for humanitarian efforts and organizations. Sometimes I wonder how they manage to even stay alive; maybe, it's like a favorite Negro spiritual of mine sings," HIS Eye Is On The Sparrow(title), and I know he watches me". My state and local governments certainly aren't watching over them.
During the last few years, due to political grandstanding on the part of my state's governor, John Engler (Republican, State of Michigan, U.S.A.), I have had even more street people than ever to watch.
In the interest of state tax cuts, Guv' John has been closing down mental institutions and reducing the number of in-patient mental health "slots" available, at a time when our state has single digit unemployment and double digit economic growth. The Guv' is letting the excess "bodies" get picked up by the correctional/criminal justice system.
This situation was precipitated by funding law changes which put the burden of financing social and mental health services onto the individual counties. So the state facilities have been closed down and none of the individual counties have funding or any apparent interest in creating their own facilities.
Well, almost.
Former patients of the Clinton Valley Center (CVC - a state mental hospital) are filling up beds at the county jail, less than 1/2 mile (.8 km) away from the former site of CVC.
Looking out of the jailhouse windows, many of these "inmates" can see their former "home", as it is torn down. In a state that has had an almost 70 percent increase in funding to the correctional system in the last decade. And a 30 percent decrease in those receiving state aid or health care due to mental problems. This is the sad state of mental health care in Oakland County, Michigan, " the Fourth Richest County in the United States".
| The World's Magazine: g21.net
Event # 216: DYNAMITE This Pull-down Menu will hyperjump you to all our great features. Try it! JOIN THE G21 MAILING LIST. Get updates on new features. It's easy! E-mail The World's Magazine with the "Subject" line: SUBSCRIBE. Want to know more about our community? The Info is here. LAST WEEK's EDITION For Deep Background visit the G21-Barnes & Noble Shop OR get great books at the G21 BARNES & NOBLE SEARCH ENGINE Discover the MOIA Discussion List |
They are just part of the estimated 2.2 million mentally ill persons in the United States, receiving no mental or health care treatment whatsoever.
"FORCE", "FIELD" & "X": Lost in the Land of Opportunity.
"FORCE" is a big, blond, blue-eyed bear of a guy, probably 6'2",300 lbs., with chubby-cheeked decent looks. I gave him the moniker of "FORCE" about five years ago, when I first noticed him walking the streets in a hip-length winter parka that has "FORCE" emblazoned across the back. In the middle of summer.He's not an apparent drunk, nor does he seem to be a "druggie"; HE IS CRAZY. Usually he stands on a corner in the downtown bus stop area, wildly disheveled, wearing his parka in sweltering hot weather, trying to shout down the world. He wants "THEM" to stop. He curses "THEM" a lot. "Leave me alone god-dammit! Go away! Go away!"
Sometime he flails his hands against his head, like a honey-stealing bear swatting at angry bees.
It's scary.
Other times, "FORCE" ventures close to the traffic, angry at the cars rushing by, like a fenced-in dog barking at passing schoolchildren, "Rarf!,Rarf! Go away, go away, GOD-DAMMIT, GO AWAY!"
I believe "FORCE" needs to be in a group home or in-patient setting, for HIS good; unfortunately, I see him sleeping in one of the bus terminals too often. Maybe he just doesn't remember how or when to go "home". I just don't know.
"FIELD" is different. Bone thin, wearing a sleeveless shirt, and a "Jimi Henricks"-style strip of dirty cloth holding his mass of graying Negro hair in a bizarre cloud above his head; "FIELD " works his strip of small stores and businesses on the north side of town.
"FIELD" generally carries two plastic bags; one with his belongings, the other with any beer or pop bottles he can find to return for a deposit at the local party store. Some of the local stores even have signs pertaining to his *occupation*,"We accept no FIELD FINDS" (bottles found on the side of roadways, often full of cigarette butts, food pieces and worse).
Hence the "FIELD" moniker. The odd thing is, unlike many of the "Field Finders", whom you will see walking the streets and drinking from a paper bag, I have never seen "FIELD" with anything but a pop and a cigarette. For awhile he slept behind our office building, between some bushes and the wall. He, and an occasional companion would dig through our garbage dumpster for food in the evenings. Sometimes, I brought some left-overs and put them in a sack, right on top where he would hopefully find them. Why couldn't he just go to the soup kitchen downtown, like "FORCE"?
Again, no answers.
Inmate "X"
Inmate "X" is back where this street-level story started out. His last known address WAS the aforementioned Clinton Valley Center. Schizophrenic, self-mutilating and without family or anyone else to steer him through the remains of the mental healthcare maze in this incredibly rich area, "X" was released in the flood of mentally ill persons "freed" when the criteria (and forms) for state paid health care changed."X" was picked up for "releiving" himself in public- Second offense.
Handcuffed with conventional cuffs and put in a police car, he quickly gouged his chest and stomach to the point of bleeding.
Kicking and screaming he was taken to a local hospital, sedated and kept for observation. Seeming calmer in the morning, he asked for one minute of privacy to use the bathroom, an unsuspecting employee complied.
Despite being handcuffed by one wrist to a rail in the bathroom, he was able to reach a shower curtain ring with his free hand, and quickly set to work at disemboweling himself.Fortunately, he was stopped in time. He has a few months left in the county jail, during which time he should heal up nicely and put on some weight while he receives his "meds" and three squares (meals). Then it's back to the street for him. Lost, temporarily found.
So, while wrecking balls continue the demolition of Clinton Valley Center and bull dozers clear land for expansion to the county jail, the mentally ill are granted access to the same facilities and services as habitual criminals: In the Land of Opportunity.
RDR RECOMMENDED SITE OF THE DAY: AND here's another site recommended to us that we thought you might find interesting. Take a look at the state of Free Speech in Albuquerque, New Mexico. VomitRadio.com
