Death by Social Worker

I know a mentally ill elderly woman who also has a serious physical illness. She is sleeping outdoors. She has been like that for months. She has lost fifty pounds and is in pain from the physical diagnosis. She has a "Case Manager" at a "Community Health Clinic," you know, those places that like to tell you how benevolent they are. Go there and try to get medical care, then you will know how benevolent they are. Anyway, as a white person, she is a minority where we both live. I am the same race as her. If you are white, people within the social service industry here or the justice system will decide they don't like you and aren't going to help you. This is especially true if you are intelligent and articulate, as this woman is. Consequences can be severe.

There are about five resources to house the homeless mentally ill here, but her case worker told her there was nothing. She referred her to market rate rentals and let her sleep outside. In her condition, this could have been a death sentence. I wish I was surprised by this, but I'm not. I went to that clinic and I had a bad experience too. I didn't have insurance or Medicaid. I wanted to pay cash on a sliding scale, which they supposedly offered. The whole purpose of clinics like this is to take care of people like me. They took two weeks to call me back. They expressed surprise and disapproval that I didn't have any insurance, even though their purpose is to take care of the uninsured. I told them I could pay the sliding scale payments. They then proceeded to insult me and cause difficulties until I gave up. They kept saying, you have to pay the $20.00. I said, yes, I know. They said, you can't not pay it. Right, I said. They said, you can't just run up a bill and not pay it. It got to the point when they had literally said this eight times and I called them on it. I said, why are you repeating this eight times? They just kept repeating it like robots. It was hateful. No one would want to get care in an atmosphere like that. So I went away. I've never had a good experience at a "Community Health Clinic." Never once was I treated respectfully. Never once was the problem diagnosed and treated.

I used to be a volunteer benefits counselor for the disabled. I decided to help this woman.

She had been advised that she should not contact the housing sources. I told her that she should. I told her to be her own social worker. That was all she needed to hear. She went directly to a housing project for the mentally ill that she knew about. They don't usually deal with consumers but because of her circumstances, an exception was made. They agreed to house her in the next available apartment. When that happened her case manager just had to contact her and do some paperwork to her to get in.

Time went by and she didn't hear anything, still sleeping outdoors, bleeding and in terrible pain. I told her to contact the housing project. She just found out that the housing project held an empty apartment for her for over a month before giving it up. When the woman confronted the case manager she lied and said that the housing project had had no room for her. This was attempted murder.

The housing project manager now says they will get her in to the next available apartment. She still has the same case manager. I offered to find her a new one somewhere else but due to her mental illness, she makes some odd decisions at times. I told her to keep in touch with the housing project, walk the papers to the case manager, have her sign them and walk them back to the housing project.

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