I ask him why.
Why people start screaming out loud in the streets.
Why so many people talk to themselves.
It's all Ronald Reagan's fault, he answers.
For a moment I believe he is one of them. One of the weirdos in the streets.
Reagan decided to close the psychiatric institutions. Because he believed people with mental problems should be taken care of within a community. By family. By people who care. He explains.
But he closed the psychiatric institutions before the communities were in place. Before families could take care off their sons, daughters, fathers or mothers with mental problems. Before families wanted to take care of them.
Today these people sit in the streets in the rain. Sleep in parks. Or in uncomfortable shelters.
They try to take care of one each other.
Or not. Steel what they can find from the other one.
It's Ronald Reagan's fault? And 16 years of new presidents didn't solve the problem Reagan created? A problem that causes people to sleep in the streets? Those people we're supposed to take care of because they have a hard time taking care of themselves?
People scream at me in the streets of San Francisco. Or I think it's at me. In real, they scream at nobody in particular. Well, maybe at Ronald Reagan.
Yesterday I saw an old, homeless man taking care of a young, confused boy. He pulled a blanket over his shoulders. Got him out of the rain.
Maybe, just maybe... they have found their community.
And they did not need a president for that.
February 20, 2008
It's all Ronald Reagans' fault.
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2 comments:
it's sad, what you write
but though i love it
every sentence you write about san francisco
thank you
Hi Alice,
I heard this story too when I was in San Francisco.
To me it sounds like an urban myth. Maybe it was true at the time of Ronald Reagan, but perhaps not so much anymore, but the story still gets passed on to the newbies.
I think someone also said to me that when Reagan closed the mental institutions, a lot of the crazies that were left with nowhere to go went to California, the sunshine state, where they could sleep on the streets without freezing to death like they would have for example in New York.
Love the blog: Andrea
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