Remember Carl Davis? An update

New Orleans Public Library
October 10, 2007
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

Carl Davis looks skinny. Skinnier than the first time I met him in June, when he told me things I felt wrong to repeat. Davis says its ok to repeat these things.

A man on the ropes isn't much on maintaining an image, I guess.

But, it's a man on the ropes who isn't afraid to give a story, a real oh my god that's whats going on and I'm no shrink but that's some crazy stuff kind of story. That day, Carl Davis told me how Hurricane Katrina had psyched him out. Voices that talk to him everyday. Voices that have told him to kill himself twice since the storm.

The last three months have been better for Davis physical condition. The terribly-sun blistered lips are now more healthy. The damage, I'm sure, will always keep Davis' lips looking a little off.

His head is still in shambles though. "There are two voices," he says. I asked what they look like--if voices had a face. White guys he says. The bad one, the one that tells him to kill himself looks like the devil.

"The good voice is telling me you're alright, Robert," he says.

Knowing that Carl has something else making judgments about me are unsettling sure, but he is a gentle man, whispering when words matter and other people are around him.

Davis weighs 135 pounds. "The voices tell me not to eat," he says. "It's poison," they say.

"The bad voice told me to kill myself the other day."

He's living in an apartment with the help of a homeless shelter in town. They gave him a deposit and first month's rent on a little place off MLK Boulevard.

"I got robbed again," he says. "It was stupid, I bought me a piece of ass."

"I hadn't had no ass in a year."

Asking was shameless and intrusive, but the answer would be a market rate snapshot in America's underworld of desperation--so I wanted to know:

"How much?"

"She had charged me 20 dollars and stole my keys. Her boyfriend came back with a gun."

They took 600 dollars, he says.

After we met in June, I didn't think I'd ever see him again. He's a classic disappearing act, but not in the romantic world traveler way. When he came to see me, we hugged. We walked three blocks and sat in the shade, ate snickers and drank orange juice.

"I'm glad you came in," I said.

"I just heard you were giving away tennis shoes," he said laughing. "I'm an 11 and a half."

Best,

Robert

To see initial Video and Column about go to the "JUNE" Folder

Face #3 New Orleans Mental Health Crisis. Meet Raymond Hall

Duncan Plaza
New Orleans, La.
July 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Raymond tried to eat the slice of pepperoni pizza. He really did. Problem was, his teeth are falling out. But before they leave, he says, the teeth break off in pieces.

Hall was one of the first homeless New Orleanians I saw who came to protest the inadequate public housing in Post-Katrina New Orleans. Over 100 people night after night sleep in the shadow of City Hall at Duncan Plaza. They sleep in the gently elevated grass and under a statue of George Washington. And next to a boarded and vacant state office built the same year as City Hall.

As I walked by them the other evening, the air had cooled, many people were up telling stories, smoking cigarettes. The main branch of the New Orleans public library is next to Duncan Plaza. About 30 people sleep under a library canopy too. An electrical outlet is used by a woman’s boombox. It’s not quite a nightlight, but she seemed peaceful.

Hall, 56, wasn’t here for KATRINA. He’s one of the few, I’m sure. But, as a Vietnam veteran who lost two young children, ages three and five, in a house fire, he deals with his share of psychological trauma.

“In less than 30 days I was back on a plane to Vietnam.”

He, like many homeless, are in “as is” condition. His chest is ribby, with wispy grey hair. He could use 25-30 pounds. A crucifix hangs from his neck. Hall isn’t the only one who sleeps outside with a faith in a god.

He came to New Orleans after losing federal disability assistance in Florida. He tried to explain what happened, but it was tough to follow. It’s a similar story for many I’ve spoken with. Hall couldn’t remember dates, he jumped around, didn’t know names of lawyers instead beginning with “The guy said…”

Carl Davis was the same way. “He’s out of DC, ah, I can’t remember the guy’s name” kind of thing.

It’s one of the most difficult things about learning their stories. Truth is, often Davis and Hall probably remember only half of their own.

But, Hall came here as a musician. A percussionist, he says. Like Davis, Hall hears voices, “They say different things, like spirits” he says. He’s diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, but has no prescriptions to tame anxiety.

When he feels bad, Hall says he just wants to go away. He understands his problems.

“I need medication,” he says.

Problem is, there aren't many here to prescribe it.

Best,

Robert

Face #2: The New Orleans' Mental Health Crisis

To view 70 second video in Full-Screen click inside picture, it will take you to YouTube.

Column below:

Duncan Plaza
City Hall
New Orleans, La.
June 2007

Dear Family and Friends--

“Raven, are you hungry?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said in a waning rasp.

Who knows what happened to his clothes, but the hospital gave him scrubs--four days ago.

Usually, scrubs like these are worn outside the hospital by only by chic high school and college kids. They are, in many ways, the new sweatpants. For Raven, however, it had become his wardrobe.

Senator Barack Obama came to New Orleans today. He spoke at the Essence Music Festival, the country’s largest celebration of African American culture.

Obama said everyone should be able to access health care. He didn’t however specifically address the mental health problems of New Orleans. He didn’t go into detail about his plans. But, for the 30,000 in attendance, his candor and general promise seemed to be enough.

I wonder what the next administration will do for the Ravens of New Orleans and the country. In many ways, KATRINA still claims people every day. People like Raven. He didn’t tell me why he was in the hospital. And I must confess, I’m making an assumption that his mental health was less than stable. But in a City where 9 of 10, rich or poor, black or white, have been affected by depression or post-traumatic stress, federal aid is a necessity not a “It’d sure be nice.”

When police find our mentally unstable on the streets, they take them to jail when psychiatric beds are full. And in Post-K NOLA, psychiatric beds have fallen by over 80 percent. This is not a statistic that should be ignored.

Mental health is not as stigmatized in New Orleans as it is in the rest of the country. People are open. People tell stories. And people cry. They say how hard it is. Many are not veiled in secrecy in New Orleans because, “We all went through it,” one of my friends said.

But in a City where it seems the residents are ready to speak; where people are open to their new existence, those trained to help are rare.

The mental illness spectrum in New Orleans is large. Some are unsavable. They have frequent bouts of psychosis. But what about the blue-collar man fighting through what he thinks must be the blues?

Will they come forward? Who knows. Right now, we aren’t prepared even if they wanted to.

Best,

Robert

Meet Carl Davis. A Face of the New Orleans' Mental Health Crisis

May, 2007
Duncan Plaza, City Hall
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

Carl Davis makes me nervous. Asking a homeless guy if he’s a hustler doesn’t happen everyday. But, I wanted to know.

After all, he might be one of the best hustlers on the streets of New Orleans. He was charming despite terribly sun-cracked and blistered lips.

“Are you a hustler?” I ask.

“You know what a hustler is?” he says. “They’re the guys that ask a few bucks from everybody, line up 30 or 40 dollars and buy crack with it.

Then, they’ll try and bum a cigarette the next day.”

Carl and I are on the steps of Duncan Plaza, the park outside of New Orleans’ City Hall. The things he says are frightening. And the dent in his head is all the evidence I need to know he’s truthful.

He’s been homeless on and off since 1981. The father of six is “ashamed.” “I don’t want them to see me,” he says.

He also hasn’t seen a mental health professional in four years. It’s early morning now, and the voices haven’t started yet, he says.

We talked openly about the mental health struggles he’s had. “I see monsters,” he says. “They try to get me.”

Voices tell him to jump in the Mississippi river. He’s tried twice since KATRINA. Both times, a more loving voice told him not to do it. “I want to go to heaven,” he says.

He tells me that the drugs made him groggy and that New Orleans doesn't have any good psychiatrists. It’s funny, there really aren’t enough here to take a sample of good and bad.

Twenty-six psychiatrists are registered in Orleans parish post-Katrina. There’s probably more on one block in Manhattan.

Psychiatric beds are down more than 80 percent. The mentally ill homeless picked up tend to be taken to jail by the NOPD. It’s out of necessity, not malice. There is nowhere to put them, the police department says.

Some people say the earth is not a cold, dead place. But we do forget people.

Carl Davis is 54. He was a pipe-fitter, has a great smile and better demeanor.

Don’t forget him.

We Americans have forgotten enough people post-Katrina in serious need of help with their mental health.

It’s a crisis. More psychiatrists/psychologists/crisis counselors, etc. are needed here.

Write your Senators and Congressmen.

Best,

Robert