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[quote=Anonymous]In her seventies my mother went off her meds. Her schizophrenia resurfaced and she became convinced that she couldn't stay in her section 8 housing because people were after her. She moved into the downtown area of her local city (not DC) and began sleeping on the street. I've been estranged from her since early childhood, in case you're wondering why I *allowed* this to happen. I had no control over it, but eventually was notified by the a hospital in the city where she'd been taken. At that point I hadn't spoken to her in years.

At that point I did try and become involved. I learned that the city wasn't going to give her back her apartment, the home she'd had for forty years. Instead a social worker suggested I could collect her (I lived 3,000 miles away) in the next two days or she could 'choose' to live in a hotel where they discharged all their patients. The monthly rent for a room at the hotel was *only* 1000. Her social security payment was 1100. Therefore, the social worker told me brightly, she'd be fine!

I googled the motel's location. It was on a six-lane highway in the city's exurbs, the kind of place that's impossible to travel from without a car. There was no way for her to live there (even if she would), or go to medical appointments, or access any care. There was also no follow up plan. My mother was, the social worker explained, fully in charge of her own life and her own choices. It wasn't their problem... And why couldn't she move in with us?

I expect a lot of you wonder the same thing. Why couldn't she move in with us?

I don't think anyone doesn't love their mother. I love mine. But this is also a woman who physically abused me and abandoned me when I was in elementary school. She has at least as much baggage about that as I do, and putting her into our lives would be like pulling the pin of a live grenade. It would destroy my marriage. It would destroy my children. It would destroy me. It was a terrible choice. I'm crying as I type this and I'm not sure why I am sharing it at all in this unfriendly place except to say that sometimes the homeless aren't drug addicts, or irresponsible people, and sometimes all the best intentions in the world can't fix something. Medicated, my mother is a sweet old lady, by all accounts, polite and charming and well-read. She plays the piano and loved mysteries. Unmedicated, she is psychotic, ranting about rape and accusing everyone of plotting against her. She'll pick up knives and strip naked and run out into the street. I believe something like that was how she got picked up from her downtown city in the first place.

What finally happened with my mom was she ended up on a Greyhound bus, which let her off in a small Midwestern town, which mysteriously has this sort of thing happen all the time. They have a fairly robust social services network to deal with it. My mother now lives in assisted living there. They give her shots of haldol, which keep her sane. We write letters. After years of failed connections I think we both know both of us can't handle more than that from each other. There's too much pain there for it to be otherwise.

When I see the homeless encampments in DC all I can think about is my mom and how terrible schizophrenia is as a disease. Some people need support. Out society needs to give it to them.

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