Homelessness Awareness Week

As I write this I’m not sure where my son is. I’m pretty sure he’s in the local area. I have no way to contact him.  Last week his girlfriend told him to leave her apartment. She could no longer live with the behaviors brought on by his mental illness. He left. My son is now in the ranks of the homeless, again.

Statistics vary on how many of the homeless suffer with a mental illness or, as some studies put it, how many folks with mental illness are homeless. The total numbers matter little when it is your loved one out there somewhere.

What can a family member do? You can’t force someone to live indoors, even if they can afford it. Sometimes, the person’s psychotic behavior makes it dangerous to have them in your home. And, there are times, like in our family right now, you don’t know where your homeless and ill loved one is at to even go and offer help.

It is possible to do something about the problem generally, even when you can’t directly help your loved one.

November 16-22 is National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, sponsored by the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Read through the material and choose what you can do. A good starting point is to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper about the problem. Then, decide what you else you can do to increase awareness of the problem.

Like the stigma of mental illness, the general public is unaware of why some people end up living in parks, subway stations, or doorways. The entertainment industry has given us a picture of deviant people who make bad choices and end up in a situation they could have avoided.

It’s up to us to, one letter at a time or one blog post at a time, to start the change.