"Residentially challenged"

When you have a home but refuse to live in it, can you really be called "homeless"?

William Royce had a home, and a loving family. But he died in the elements after mental illness robbed him of his ability to make informed choices. A local police department spokesperson called Royce "residentially challenged,' which many, including one letter-writer, called "a new low in political correctness."

But might that actually be the most accurate way to describe someone like William Royce?

In a response via a letter to the editor in the Tallahassee Democrat, William Royce’s father Charles makes this unique argument.

I thought "residentially challenged" was a very correct way to describe the situation, and our family appreciated its use in the newspaper.

This was a young man who wasn't homeless, but he was residentially challenged, and he chose to live where he was found. He was also mentally challenged. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and he periodically was affected by that. Whoever coined that phrase, or opted to use that phrase, was very kind in his choice of words and the family appreciated that.

Criminalizing mental illness

In Putnam County, Tennessee, a crisis stabilization unit (CSU) was opened on April 30. Since its opening county law enforcement officers have seen a drop in the amount of time deputies are spending transporting people with mental illnesses to facilities in other cities.

Excellent; but deputies are still spending an inordinate amount of time driving people to mental health facilities. In fact Putnam County Sheriff, David Andrews has two deputies designated for mental health transports.

So far this year, Putnam deputies have made 319 mental health transports, compared to a total of 478 last year.

If one or two deputies transports a mental health patient to Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute in Chattanooga, those officers are off patrol in Putnam County between five and six hours, according to Sheriff Andrews.

The CSU is a great start to getting people treatment, and relieving the burden of law enforcement acting as mental health professionals. But – the new CSU only takes voluntary patients. People who won’t volunteer for treatment, who are aggressive or violent still have to be treated elsewhere, and that means law enforcement are charged with transporting them.

"I think there's got to be a better way to do this, unless they come out of the jail, a person who has some reason to be transported to a mental health hospital hasn't broken any law in many cases," Sheriff Andrews said. "It criminalizes mental illness to put a mental health patient in the back of a patrol car."

A little too late

According to a psychiatrist Elartrice Ingram’s schizophrenia symptoms are now under control. He has been in treatment and he’s no longer a threat to himself or others.

It’s too bad that treatment came AFTER he stabbed eight people.

"You're only God for awhile"

In a state with no AOT, a creative judge finds a way to keep a young man out of jail and on his meds.

Travis Williams said he was embarrassed by his behavior now that he's thinking clearly and he is happy to have medication administered intravenously once a month.

"I'm lucky that no one got killed. I remember being mad but I don't remember why I was mad," he said. "You're only God for a while."

Plagued by the memories

In Tennessee on Monday, Sherry Sims drowned her 4-year-old daughter. Sims' mother said to reporters: "My daughter is a good mother. She takes real good care of her children. She loves her children. I know if she was still taking her medicine [for schizophrenia], nothing like this would've ever happened."

A news story from New York this week reports that Christine Wilhelm, like Andrea Yates, is "plagued by the memories." Wilhelm also drowned her 4-year-old child, and attempted to drown his brother. She is sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison.

Will Sims and Wilhelm have more of a chance to get treatment instead of punishment considering the recent Andrea Yates verdict? Possibly. But their children suffered the same fate. And their mothers, once brought back to reality, must live with something unfathomable.

Crimes and misdemeanors

The vast majority of jail inmates with serious brain disorders who do have charges against them have been arrested for misdemeanors such as trespassing.

Some have been arrested for misdemeanors many times over. Like Gloria Rodgers of Memphis, who in 1998 was reported to have had 258 previous arrests and to have been jailed 114 times in the previous four years.

One study found the four most common offenses perpetrated by the mentally ill were assault/battery, theft, disorderly conduct, and drug- and alcohol-related crimes.[1] One young man smashed a store window “because he saw a dinosaur jumping out at him,” and a young woman refused to pay for her meal in a restaurant because she claimed to be “the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.”[2]

Sometimes, a misdemeanor arrest can quickly land someone in jail on a far more serious charge ... all because of lack of treatment.

[1] National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Criminalizing the seriously mentally ill: The abuse of jails as mental hospitals (1992).
[2] Gary E. Whitmer, From Hospitals to Jails: The Fate of California’s Deinstutionalized Mentally Ill, 50 Amer. J. Orthopsychiatry 65, 66 (1980), and Edwin V. Valdiserri et al., A Study of Offenses Committed by Psychotic Inmates in a County Jail, 37 Hosp. Community Psychiatry 163, 165 (1986).