A woman lays down on the railroad tracks. It’s chilly. She’s cold. Lonely. Darkness drapes about her like a threadworn cloak. El Niño washes over San Luis Obispo bringing rain to some and despair to the mentally ill homeless of which she is a sad member. It’s a disease of the mind that isolates her from others, a disorder that cleaves one from family, and causes one to distrust friends. It also often subjects the sufferer to terrifying hallucinations and delusions of the most hideous nature.
Unfortunately mental illness also causes many to look upon the victim with fright and still others with anger. Especially, should the person afflicted with mental illness be homeless. In that event prejudices and judgment rain down on them like the storm that this poor woman found herself in.
Working the streets in Santa Barbara I would accompany the rains searching out those afflicted and try and get them into shelters.
Sometimes they would take my advice and allow themselves to be placed in one of the homeless shelters. Other times they would sit in the rain and tell me no. I remember, “Fred” sitting across from a bank dressed only in a white T-shirt, jeans, and socks. No shoes. No jacket. No rain gear. He refused my every exhortation. The most he would take from me was a jacket that I offered him. I can still see him standing, walking away, his soaked socks dragging behind him.
Another time, a mentally ill woman sat in a downpour in her wheelchair telling me stories that made no sense. Delusions that had so much power that they hid the vicious rains that soaked her to the bone from her consciousness.
We used to call this time of year the “killing season.” In scores, our neighbors without shelters in Santa Barbara would embrace Death who stalked them. Their bodies would be found tucked away behind bushes, in alleyways, fields, along the beach. They would die from hypothermia, diseases, and ruined health but mostly from lack of hope. In all cases it was despair and loneliness that forced them into Death’s arms.
And then there were those who found their fate on the railroad tracks. One man neatly piled his belongings beside the tracks, set his earplugs and wallet on top and calmly walked down the tracks into the oncoming train. Another client laid down directly on the tracks, as did this distraught woman in SLO. Still another jumped in front of the train. And another, wearing headphones, stood still while the 100-ton beast hurtled upon him.
Often I tried to put myself in their place, see the world through their eyes. How tortured their souls must have been from the symptoms of their mind diseases. The loneliness made especially cruel coming so close to Christmas, which amplifies their estrangement from family: mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands, and wives. We would lose our friends on the streets by the score during the Season of Death—quiet souls that most of us are too busy to give much thought to.
Perhaps we can take time and offer our prayers, or a moment of silence in honor of our friend without a home who died such a lonely and violent death, and, also a thought to her family who may or may not be notified of her death. And perhaps we can reflect how we continue to allow such a tragic and immoral societal problem to fester without bringing the political, financial, and moral willpower to end this national disgrace. Maybe in the end the mentally ill homeless, along with the rest of the meek will “inherit the earth” but not before going through hell first.
Since this poor woman’s death occurred, a man was killed by a train in SLO County. And in Goleta, a 19-year-old woman committed suicide on the tracks. In LA a homeless mentally ill woman froze to death on the streets of Los Angeles. Not only do these tragedies speak to the needs of the mentally ill homeless, but also they highlight the glaring need for effective mental health services.
Mental health workers need to be on the streets on a daily basis taking services to those without, including those who are resistant to offers of help. The same goes for those who serve veterans of our forever wars. Sitting behind desks while the poor, those afflicted with mental illnesses and/or who are wounded physically, mentally, or spiritually by war is not a doable plan. Morally we owe the homeless, the mentally ill, and our disabled veterans. In this crazy season of hate demanding that those in charge of providing help to the less fortunate can help redeem who we are as a society. Refusing to do so will define what we have become.
Ken Williams worked as a social worker for the homeless, primary the mentally ill in Santa Barbara for more than 30 years. He’s now a writer living in Cambria, whose work has appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, the Independent, Edhat, and noozhawk.com. He’s authored four books, his latest: Fractured Angel is the story of a mentally ill teenager whose mother searches desperately for her among the homeless in Santa Barbara. He is also combat Marine having served in Vietnam during the war.
This article appears in Jan 14-21, 2016.