True story about a specific homeless person, because Madelaine Amee expresses the exact situation I was involved in, in Boston (people made homeless as a result of mental hospitals being shut down).
There was a guy everyone called Skip. His real name was Kenny, and he was often referred to as OT, which stood for "Out To..(lunch)."
Kenny had some significant mental illness. This was also when "paranoid schizophrenic" was an actual diagnosis, I believe that has changed since then. He also suffered from delusions and multiple personalities. He would disappear for a month, and show up in the middle of winter in Harvard Square stinking like a hobo, wearing plastic bags over bare feet.
Eventually he'd get help finding his parents' home, and he'd get the medication he needed, change of clothes, food. But he was an adult, and his parents both worked, and couldn't be his keeper 24/7 so they had to let him leave. He HAD been declared mentally incompetent but as I said - the hospital closed and they let him out. Anyone whose illness could be managed via medication was left to their own devices, even if part of the problem was that one of their personalities wasn't aware that the body was in need of medication.
Kenny was actually incredibly smart. He spoke several languages and had, at one point, been granted a full 4-year scholarship to Harvard. By the time I met him for the first time he was in his early 30's.
As a busker, I often had to leave my "spot" to go to the bathroom, but that usually meant having to lose that spot to whoever was waiting for me to leave. One time I was down in the Harvard Square Red Line, playing my guitar, and Kenny showed up. He stood by the wall silent and stoic til I was finished singing, and approached me. He told me he was Secret Service, and that he was sent to protect me and I shouldn't worry because he'd keep me safe.
I'd seen this personality of his before, and it was mostly harmless and always entertaining. So I told him I needed him to guard my guitar and the money in the case while I called the President upstairs about a mission. Of course, he complied. I went up to the coffee shop's bathroom, bought a couple of coffees, came back and he was playing my guitar and singing Case of You by Joni Mitchell. His voice was so soulful and heartfelt I could only just stand there and cry.
Kenny died several years ago, and the majority of the Harvard Square "street community" came together to mourn his passing. This included all the employees of the stores in the Square, the guy at the NewsStand, other street musicians and artists and performers, Harvard University professors, and the church deacon.
He was so well loved. And he was homeless. And it angers me when people assume homeless people mostly "choose" to be that way. He was one of dozens of homeless or near-homeless "street people" I knew, during the early 1980's. They all had a story. Some were grifters. Most were not.
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