I remember a while back some politician stating that he felt some people choose to be homeless. It caused a stir and an outrage because no one in their right mind would choose to be homeless, right?
R. is a young man with many personal demons. He sees things that aren't there and hears voices that put him down. Crowds and loud noises increase his symptoms. Inside noises we take for granted - the hum of overhead lights, the whir of a refrigerator, muffled voices of people speaking in the next room - all become insurmountable obstacles to being able to maintain. He finds his peace outdoors. R. has been in and out of mental health services for most of his young life. He has yet to find that space where he feels comfortable enough to make small talk let alone confide in another human being. Everyone is suspect. He has paranoid schizophrenia.
Many attempts have been made to give R. a better way of life. Since the age of 18, human service agencies have tried to engage him and get him involved in recovery treatment. Housing agencies have worked to secure him affordable housing only to have him abandon it later and return to his hidden places on the street. The police have picked him up and gotten him hospitalized where, for a short time, he will do well on medications. Then he is released to the care of some agency who starts all over again. And always he chooses the streets. It is a hard life that has aged him quickly. Now in his late 20's he looks more like 40. He is one of those people that strangers want to stop and help. The local office of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill get cold calls from passers by who want to know why someone, somewhere doesn't do something. Then they call us. And the cycle starts again.
He does no harm. He doesn't cheat, steal, or lie. He's not a murderer or a pedophile. He doesn't drink or do drugs. He is a bright young man with an intrusive illness of the brain that makes him see and believe in things that do no exist. He cannot reconcile what is real and what is real to him so he copes as best he can in the only way that makes sense to him. And what makes sense to him - to live out there, in the quiet night, in the cold, in the dirt, in the heat, under the stars, in the storm - doesn't make sense to the rest of us. Surely, he would be better off put away somewhere? Maybe locked up somewhere? For his own good...
I hear that a lot. Do something, for his own good. Maybe the best thing we can do, for his own good, is to allow him to live the way he chooses and to leave him alone. We, who do not have schizophrenia or the demons he lives with, will never understand his decisions. But we must respect them.
We take him food and warm clothing sometimes. A sleeping bag this winter was a godsend, a tent, clean socks, used boots. We check in to see if he wants something more. He rarely does. And we let him be, leaving behind our names, numbers and address so if he ever changes his mind, he'll know where to find us.
You see, it is possible that some people choose to be homeless. Because when they are homeless, they feel most at home.
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