My Son Will Be Homeless This Friday. Here's Why It Didn't Need to Happen.
Two weeks ago, I was walking through Chicago streets during breaks in the Voiceover Conference I was attending. The weather was beautiful, the Public Transportation efficient and smooth, the city a delight.
And still…there were unhoused humans everywhere - on a park bench, napping on the floor of the train stations, outside the restaurants and CVS.
Unhoused, filthy, muttering to themselves.
And I thought, my son is a heartbeat away from this. I have saved him from this more times than I can count. He is among the lucky. There but for the grace of God…
But this Friday my own son will be out there too. Not by the grace of God, but by the grace of addiction, schizophrenia, a system that protects his “rights” to live unhoused over getting treatment, and by a mother who, this time, will not rescue him.
He has to hit bottom. Real bottom. But, sadly, he has been there before.
His SMI (serious mental illness), when untreated, interferes with his ability to know he has hit bottom. The voices which he swears he does not hear will tell him it’s okay. That he is okay. That his mother, sister, and whale family are crazy, not him. That he doesn’t need help. This is just fine.
Yes, the PC Word now is UnHoused. Whatever you name it, in four days my son will be without a place to live, without a bed to sleep in.
And this is my only option, after schizophrenia and addiction took over.
Six short weeks ago, Ben was let loose from jail diversion. The judicial system took away all requirements for his release. No checking in. No drug testing. No structure imposed. All the things that had gotten Ben to the point of recovery up til then: structure, purpose, community. All now -optional. And unchosen.
One directive: “just don’t get into trouble”.
And for two golden days, it all looked hopeful. He connected with old friends, said he had learned his lesson, hugged his nieces and nephew, admitted for the first time that he “might” actually have schizophrenia.
All it took was one hit of marijuana, one beer - and his chemical balance was all off. A complete 180 from his recovery mindset.
Marijuana may be legal now - but, for some brains, it is lethal.
Ben is now only six weeks into his freedom - services available but optional - and he has become so unmanageable that the only choice left is to remove him from his housing - before there is an eviction on his record. This is the one and only action I can take to still help preserve what is left of his reputation.
“Marijuana may be legal now - but, for some brains, it is lethal.”
So I will.
I rented the storage unit, I’ve paid the movers, and in four days all my son’s brand-new furniture and household goods (we were so hopeful when we bought them) will be moved to storage. I will tell my only son to pack a bag and wish him luck.
I will speed him to homelessness.
Maybe the people who have been crashing in his bedroom (leaving him to sleep on the loveseat) will have a couch he can crash on.
Maybe he will stop using, now that he has no housing to trade for drugs.
Maybe - just maybe - he will take his agency up on the only other offered option: check yourself into the hospital and ask for detox and rehab.
At least he will have a bed there.
What could have prevented this?
Assisted Outpatient Treatment. Connecticut is one of only two states to not have this in place.
According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, “Assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) is the practice of providing outpatient treatment under civil court order to individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) who have demonstrated difficulty engaging with treatment on a voluntary basis. When systematically implemented and adequately resourced, AOT can dramatically reduce hospitalization, criminalization, and other adverse outcomes for its target population”
If Ben had been court-ordered into treatment, he might be on his way back to employment, community, and sobriety.
But every single time we have called for him to be evaluated (by police or mental health teams), we’ve been told,
“we can’t help him without his consent.”
“He isn’t a harm to himself or others yet”
”He isn’t sick enough.”
I have heard all this before. And, again, I beg to differ.
You may ask, Why don’t I take him back home?
Because I am now frightened of my own son. Not my sober son, but my addicted son. I have seen what drug use makes him do, how he justifies theft and fraud and family pain.
So my only choice is to let him hit bottom.
The fact that in order to do that, I must supervise the removal of all his possessions from his apartment to a storage unit, watch the movers take it all away while Ben protests, breaks my heart.
But I have no choice left.
It must be done.
Ben has had help offered to him, but is in no place to really accept it. Social workers everywhere, I salute you. But as the agency trying to help my son says they say to their staff, “We can’t be working harder than the client.”
I know.
My son must want to be helped.
He does not. His illness and addiction won’t let him think that.
So down down down he will go.
I just hope he knows he has hit bottom when he gets there. And that he remembers all the love he has had in his life. I hope it can,eventually, come back to him.
How I miss who he used to be, even six weeks ago.
This did not have to happen. But is it happening.
