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A two-and-a-half year odyssey through a maze of government bureaucracy, social service agencies, and banking institutions has ended with a simple but monumentally important result: a homeless, mentally ill guest at the Soup Kitchen is finally receiving the Social Security Disability payments she is entitled to and a safe place to live.
Dana (not her real name) has been eating at the Soup Kitchen for more than seven years. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Dana became homeless several years ago when a small inheritance she had been living on ran out and she was evicted from her apartment. For a while, she was able to have her Social Security Disability check delivered to the homeless drop-in center in Morristown. But as Dana’s schizophrenia worsened, she became convinced they wanted to harm her, and she refused to go there anymore. Her checks were sent back to the Social Security Administration uncashed, and eventually her benefits were stopped. Now Dana was homeless and entirely destitute.
The stress of living on the street – wandering all day long, unprotected from heat, rain or snow, at times victimized by men – made Dana’s illness even worse. She believed that everyone was trying to harm her, sometimes even refusing to eat her meal at the Soup Kitchen because she thought it had been poisoned. Dana was afraid of her mental health case worker, refused to talk to the Soup Kitchen’s social worker, and reacted fearfully when other staff members spoke to her. The one person she trusted at least a little bit was Soup Kitchen director Terry Connolly.
“Dana doesn’t look like the stereotypical mentally ill homeless person,” Terry says. “She’s clean, and relatively well-dressed with a slightly distracted manner. Conversations with her start off normally enough, but soon fall apart as she begins talking about all the forces trying to harm her. When I would offer to help her, she would refuse, saying she didn’t want “them” to get me too.”
It took Terry years of calm conversations and small hand-outs of toiletries and extra food to establish a rapport with Dana. Increasingly concerned about Dana’s physical safety on the street, Terry decided to intervene to restore Dana’s Social Security benefits, even though Dana continued to resist this aid. The Social Security Administration reviewed Dana’s record and wanted her to have a “representative payee” – someone to receive her checks for her. But, since there was absolutely no one that Dana trusted, Terry knew this would never work. After nearly 18 months of phone calls to mental health workers and Social Security officials, the Social Security Administration agreed to send the benefit checks made payable to Dana to the Soup Kitchen.
Now, Dana had a source of income and could rent a room. But the check proved to be a worthless piece of paper because Dana couldn’t cash it without a bank account. She couldn’t get a bank account without a source of identification. And she couldn’t get a county-issued ID (similar to a driver’s license for non-drivers) without an address that proved she was a county resident – a classic Catch-22.
Again, Terry began an involved dance with the bureaucrats at the department of motor vehicles, and finally managed to get them to accept the Soup Kitchen’s address for Dana. The ID was finally issued, Dana opened the bank account, and the Social Security checks could finally be cashed.
Dana succeeded in renting a room to live in. She is still paranoid, insisting on sleeping on a bedroll rather than a mattress so she can be prepared to flee at a moment’s notice. But with a safe place to sleep every night, the symptoms of Dana’s illness have improved somewhat. She eats everyday at the Soup Kitchen and appears much more relaxed.
“Dana’s case illustrates the huge need for supportive housing for the mentally ill,” Terry says. “Dana is not a danger to herself or others and she can take care of her basic personal needs. She doesn’t need to be hospitalized, and frankly, intensive supervision and therapy probably wouldn’t do her much good. What is best for her – and for our community – is that she have a safe, clean place to stay with some social service support that would prevent small problems from escalating into the kind of crisis that would force her into homelessness again.
Former Governor Codey signed legislation that provided $200 million for 10,000 units of supportive housing for the mentally ill in New Jersey. Although completion of the units is years away, we are hopeful that this represents a small step in the right direction for people like Dana. There is no fairy-tale ending for Dana’s story, but to those of us at the Soup Kitchen who care about her, Dana’s new home is cause for celebration. |
