6 minute read
OPINION
Regarding the Tragedy of Our Homeless Problem
By Maeve McGrath
Iknow better than many what a failure the mental health system is. My brother Ryan was an amazing human being and an upstanding citizen and taxpayer most of his life. He received a degree from one of the best hotel management schools in the world. He also went on to graduate with honors from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and went on to have a brilliant career. In recent years, when all that fell apart, my brother still did his best, focusing his intense creativity not just into cooking, but beautiful art he composed with found fragments and his fragile, fragmenting mind. He succumbed to his first manic episode in 2015. Not knowing how to handle it, police arrested him and threw him in jail for a month when he tried to fight off the officer restraining him (the cause for their coming was that he was scaring his neighbors and disrupting the peace). Upon release, he struggled to find his way and we took care of him. In 2017 he had another severe breakdown. His condition also came with anosognosia, which many people do not realize is a real and major problem with bipolar and schizophrenic people. It is also anatomical in nature. His brain truly does not understand it is sick and therefore refuses to get treatment. We managed to get him hospitalized during the second breakdown, and had to beg and threaten them not to release him after just three days (unmedicated). After 14 unmedicated days, my brother was released, not much better than before. Again, we struggled to care for him and keep a roof over his head. Despite our pleas to start taking medication, my brother refused, insisting he was not bipolar and only had PTSD from different childhood experiences, and that he would work on getting well on his own. We relented, as the only alternative was to kick him out (which we could not bear to do since he was doing so well and was a wonderful uncle and a joy to be around) and force homelessness on him. Last month it happened again... and it is now probably final. The hospital again released him unmedicated after a week, telling us that as an adult he has the right to choose what is best for him, despite the fact that the organ which he uses to make decisions is sick and unable to make decisions. My brother’s brain is begging for medicine that will heal him. The only difference between him and a Stage 4 cancer patient is that he cannot voice his needs. The mental health laws in this country, under the “guise” of compassion for human rights, are in fact the same as putting a gun to that person’s head and pulling the trigger. My brother is now another statistic…homeless, cold,
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MAEVE MCGRATH
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hungry and aimless on the Venice Boardwalk like so many others. He truly cannot understand that he is sick and does not know why we are doing this to him. It is a catch 22. We simply cannot help or house someone that sick who doesn’t know he is sick and therefore won’t get medicated and therefore will remain sick. The laws in this country must change. There needs to be a “three strikes you’re out” law in mental health as there is in prisons. Unlike the prison three strikes, this one would actually work. If a patient is admitted against their will once to a hospital, then as an adult they should have the right to refuse medicine and be released after 72 hours. The second time, they may still refuse. Third time... you’re out. Mandatory 14-day medicated hold to be pushed up to 30 days or longer. If this had been the law already, my brother would be well now and well on his way to being a wonderful and productive member of our society again, as his brain would have time to heal and help him to finally make better choices. Instead, my beautiful, intelligent, wonderful brother who had so much potential and everything in the world to look forward to, is now someone talking to trees who we would cross the street to avoid. I no longer see the beauty of a than cost taxpayers more money and delay the restoration for several more years. The cases were scheduled for a preliminary hearing on January 27, but that has now been postponed to May 3, presumably due to the huge volume of documents in the administrative record.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife produced thousands of pages of scientific analyses, survey reports, special studies and of course the Project Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The EIR analyzed 13 different project alternatives before proposing the current plan, which will enhance, create and restore over 600 acres of state-owned lands that comprise the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. Ten miles of new bike paths and trails will surround the Reserve, enhancing public access and educational opportunities within the second largest natural habitat public open space in the City of Los Angeles (only Griffith Park is larger).
It’s clear Ms. Rosen and her co-plaintiffs despise the state’s exceptional plan.They prefer to leave as-is 200-acres of weedinfested fill dirt south of Fiji Way, dumped from Marina construction. They vilify bulldozers, when in fact, heavy equipment has long been the large-scale wetland restoration method of choice at over 200 projects statewide. Instead of modern, bioengineered levees vegetated with native habitat and adorned with footpaths at Ballona, Ms. Rosen and her allies want to protect the obsolete, massive concrete creek channel, which strangles remaining wetlands by preventing nourishing ocean tides from reaching critical habitat. In my opinion, virtually anything stated by Ms. Rosen or her allies about Ballona should be regarded with extreme skepticism, particularly their pleas for charitable contributions to their “organizations.” Dr. David W. Kay Playa Vista
sunset. I wonder only where my brother will sleep tonight. This system has failed my family. And it has failed yours. What a completely avoidable waste of a beautiful human being. I will always love you, Ryan.
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