Blog Action Day: Poverty and the Seriously Mentally Ill

My wife is a social worker. Her clients are SMI (Seriously Mentally Ill). The seriously mentally ill have problems such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression or (the scariest to me) traumatic brain injuries. Why do I find traumatic brain injuries so scary? Because they can happen to anyone. Traumatic brain injuries can be caused by car accidents, falls, assaults or any number of other things that happen to ordinary people. One day you are living a normal life, and the next day you can’t. Your life turns on a dime. Traumatic brain injuries are among the hardest mental disorders to fix or improve. Once a piece of your brain has been damaged, there’s no chemical or therapy that will repair it.

Not all of the seriously mentally ill live in poverty. Many work jobs (from minimum wage on up) or have support from their families. The majority, however, are dependent on some sort of assistance, either from the government or from the community at large. Those who receive Social Security can count on a monthly income, but it isn’t a whole lot of money. For some it is as little as six hundred dollars a month. For those who managed to maintain jobs before they were hit by mental illness, the assistance will be a bit higher, but not enough to live comfortably without additional assistance.

Even with social security, their financial problems don’t go away. People with mental illness severe enough to warrant social security often have poor life skills. They can’t handle money. They have vices such as drugs that they can’t get control over. In many cases they must be assigned an executor who will watch over their money for them and make sure they are fed and have a place to live. Sometimes, even the executors do more harm than good. Not everyone involved with the seriously mentally ill has their best interests at heart,

The members of the SMI population who don’t get social security, family assistance or manage to hold on to a job must still find a way to live. These people are homeless, living on the streets or in shelters. Mental illness is a daunting problem to deal with even if you have a warm home, food in your belly and a loving family. Without those, it is a crushing burden to bear.

What my wife does is try to assist these people. She doesn’t give away handouts. The biggest thing she can give away is a bus pass and (if it has been a good week for donations) some clothes. What she does is direct them to shelters where they can spend the night. She arranges for them to meet with doctors so they can get the proper medications. She helps them find jobs so that they can both have some money and have something other than their illness to think about all day. She helps them sign up for programs such as social security, welfare, food stamps and medical care. She helps them. She doesn’t do it for them. She helps people help themselves.

It isn’t always easy. There are people who feel entitled and want everything done for them. There are people who are angry or scared and sometimes dangerous. There are government agencies that care about every detail but the person. There are clients who won’t take the assistance you offer. At least a couple of times a year, one of her clients dies. Suicides and murders are common among this population, especially those living on the street.

I’m not offering a solution. I don’t have one. I just want you to be aware that these people are out there, because we often forget. Help if you can, but at the very least, have a little sympathy for those in poverty, because you don’t know what brought them there.