Hitting Home: Homelessness and mental health in Tulsa

Oklahoma ranks No.2 in the nation for the prevalence of mental illness, and its effects throughout the state are widespread. For five days, the Tulsa World series “Hitting Home” takes a look at mental health — how it can be intertwined with homelessness and how it affects our community.

The topic of this series is among the priorities identified by the World’s Community Advisory Board and Tulsa World editors. The Advisory Board is a group of 24 citizens from a cross section of our community who have offered their expertise and opinions throughout the last year. “Hitting Home” is the Advisory Board’s final priority series of 2014.

In March, the "Spend to Save" series looked at investments state and local governments could make in programs that would result in long-term savings: tulsaworld.com/spendtosave.

In July, the "Bridging the skills gap" series looked at how schools, businesses and the government are trying to improve Oklahoma's workforce: tulsaworld.com/skillsgap.

In September, the "Livable Tulsa" series looked at how the city's future could be shaped by its ability to attract and retain smart, young people: tulsaworld.com/livabletulsa.

Starting Thursday: A Tulsa World special report about mental health

VIDEO: Starting Thursday: Mental illness and homelessness in Tulsa

In March, the "Spend to Save" series looked at investments state and local governments could make in programs that would result in long-term savings: tulsaworld.com/spendtosave.

In July, the "Bridging the skills gap" series looked at at how schools, businesses and the government are trying to improve Oklahoma’s workforce: tulsaworld.com/skillsgap.

In September, the "Livable Tulsa" series looked at how the city's future could be shaped by its ability to attract and retain smart, young people: tulsaworld.com/livabletulsa.

Mike Strain: Homeless family with baby, 5-year-old hopes for better future

Video: Hitting Home: Stories from our continuing series about mental health and homelessness

Video: The physiology of mental illness

Video: Managing Editor Mike Strain and staff photographer Mike Simons discuss "Hitting Home" the Tulsa World's new series on mental health and homelessness

The 14-month-old baby is in a backpack strapped to his mom. Dad has his own backpack, and so does their 5-year-old son tagging along.

In another place, this might look like a family outing. In downtown Tulsa, this is homelessness.

The LaRonge family moves from place to place throughout the day. The Librarium. The courthouse plaza. The Day Center for the Homeless.

We met this family downtown, where many of our city’s homeless congregate.

Dennis LaRonge, 42, battled substance abuse and served 10 years in a Missouri prison for possession of a controlled substance. He says he’s been clean almost 14 years. LaRonge says he recently lost a construction job, his car was impounded when he failed to make payments and then he came to Tulsa with his family in mid-November.

They eat where they find the meals — Iron Gate, the Day Center and the Salvation Army, which is where they sleep at night. LaRonge wonders: What is this doing to my 5-year-old son, Levi, a boy who was diagnosed with autism and ADHD a few months ago?

“We had the ball rolling on getting him medication and special ed and all that stuff, but we wound up becoming homeless and having to come here,” Dennis LaRonge told our reporter while sitting outside the courthouse. “Now we have to start all over again.

“I feel so bad for him,” LaRonge said.

“And then I got him out here; he sees us stressed out and that sure don’t help.”

LaRonge worries about his son’s future: “I want him to have a stable life. I don’t want him to be raised like this. I don’t like this — I feel like a failure.”

For two decades, Mike Brose has seen people like the LaRonge family, and he wants to try to find better solutions to help them. Brose is the executive director of the Tulsa-based Mental Health Association Oklahoma.

After working alongside Brose on this project, our photographer Mike Simons calls people like him saints for the work they do every day.

Brose wants people to be more aware of the problem. Oklahoma has one of the highest rates of reported mental illness in the country. It affects a wide swath of our society, not just the homeless.

For some, that effect might be indirect — the taxes you pay for a jail that has hundreds of inmates receiving medication but no real treatment. For others, it’s more direct — the impact on a co-worker, a friend or a family you know.

In the past few weeks, our reporters and Simons — who did the bulk of the photography and video — have been on the streets, literally, meeting people who live there. It’s been part of an effort for a series this week we’re calling “Hitting Home.” The series, prompted by our Community Advisory Board, is a look at mental health issues and homelessness. Not every person who battles mental illness is homeless, nor is every homeless person battling mental illness. But the issues often intersect and deeply affect our community.

Today, we start with a closer look at mental illness. What is it? As Oklahoma’s mental health commissioner Terri White will tell you, it’s often misunderstood. Mental illness is not a state of mind. Like diabetes, it’s a physical condition that, if left untreated, can worsen, White says.

Experts say it’s stigmatized, and I agree. Our society seems to take this view: “Why won’t you change your attitude, quit being so stressed out and get better!?” Mental health issues are viewed as a weakness. I had a friend who once confided, almost shamefully, that he was taking medication. I asked: If you had diabetes, would you seek treatment and feel shame about that?

Mental illness can be triggered by many factors. Its consequences can be severe — suicide, job loss, divorce, addiction and incarceration (one county official says the Tulsa Jail is the largest mental health institution in the state).

We’ve written many stories through the years but hope to help Brose and others with a greater focus on the issues for the next few days.

How to get help

911: For a crisis

211: A social-service hotlinewith operators able to take information and steer callers in the right direction based on each situation.

Suicide hotline: 800-522- 9054, available 24 hours, seven days a week.

Mental Health Association Oklahoma: 918-585-1213 (Tulsa) and 405-943- 3700 (Oklahoma City). Website is mhaok.org. Offers advocacy, housing programs and guidance based on the individual situation.

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Oklahoma: 405-607-6018. Advocacy and support groups. namioklahoma.org

NAMI Tulsa, 918-587-6264 or NAMI-Tulsa@ , namitulsa. org

The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services has 14 community mental health service centers statewide. These can be starting points for finding services for adults and children.

Four are located in the Tulsa and surrounding counties:

• Counseling and Recovery Services: 918-492-2554. Its main office is at 7010 S. Yale Ave. and also has a Sand Springs office at 401 E. Broadway Court. Website is crsok.org.

• Family & Children’s Services: To make an appointment and get information, call 918- 587-9471. For a crisis, call the 24-hour hotline at 918-744-4800. Website is fcsok.org.

• CREOKS: Has 17 clinics and nearly a dozen satellite areas in northeast Oklahoma serving more than 170 communities. Call 877-327-3657 or go to its online service locator at creoks.org.

• Grand Lake Mental Health Center: It has clinics in eight counties. Go to its website at glmhc.net to find numbers for clinics in Afton, Vinita, Grove, Pryor, Nowata, Miami, Claremore and Bartlesville.

An online behavioral health services treatment locator can narrow down programs based on address: https://findtreatment. samhsa.gov/.

Private insurance carriers usually have a contact number on the card to call to determine what providers are within the insurance network.

One in five Oklahoma adults suffer from mental illness

Mike Strain: Homeless family with baby, 5-year-old hopes for better future

Video: Hitting Home: Stories from our continuing series about mental health and homelessness

Video: The physiology of mental illness

Video: Managing Editor Mike Strain and staff photographer Mike Simons discuss "Hitting Home" the Tulsa World's new series on mental health and homelessness

More than 20 percent of Oklahomans suffer from mental illness, an often misunderstood disease that can be debilitating but is treatable, experts say.

Many other social issues — including homelessness, jail overcrowding, substance abuse and addiction — can be linked to mental illness and a lack of access to treatment.

“I think we still have a general misunderstanding” of mental illness, said Terri White, commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. “... Mental illness and addiction does not discriminate based on age, race or socioeconomic status.”

Mental illness is sometimes perceived as weaknesses of character instead of brain-based biological diseases, White said.

Mike Brose, executive director of the Mental Health Association Oklahoma, said public understanding of mental illness lags greatly behind the science of research and treatment.

“That’s one of the biggest barriers to people reaching out for help,” he said. “Also, it’s a big barrier to funding.”

Treatment for mental illness includes therapy and medication, often in tandem.

“With treatment, people can and do recover,” White said.

Children who receive treatment are more likely to stay in school. Adults are more likely to have good attendance at work and hold down a job. But hundreds of thousands of people — 70 percent of those needing services in Oklahoma — don’t have access to that treatment, White said.

People who don’t get treatment for mental illness die about 25 years sooner than average, she said.

Mental health professionals often compare mental illnesses, which are diseases of the brain, to diabetes, a disease of the pancreas.

The symptoms of mental illness can be bizarre, like hearing voices or not being able to get out of bed, and many people don’t know the science behind the illnesses, White said.

Dr. Gerard Clancy, president of the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa and former president of the college of medicine, said the sooner treatment starts, the more effective it is.

Many mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, start in the late teens, he said.

“If we find those and treat those illnesses earlier, the outcomes are much, much better,” he said.

Dr. Martin Paulus, scientific director and president of the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, said brain imaging shows differences in the brain of a person with a disorder and the brain of a person who has no mental illness.

Chemicals function differently in the brain of a person with mental illness. Medication can help, and LIBR is currently doing research that may help predict what medicines work best for an individual, he said.

One of the next steps is working on preventing mental illness before it occurs, he said.

“That’s the direction that a large part of the research is going,” he said.

It’s difficult to say why Oklahoma has such high rates of mental illness, he said.

The stress of poverty and child abuse can certainly have an affect, he said.

“Those then translate later on in life to mental illness,” he said.

Brose said one way to identify mental illness early is to train school counselors to be more than academic advisers.

Their current role is necessary, but children also need somebody to help look out for their emotional well-being, he said.

Without training, it can be difficult for parents to know if their child has a problem.

“Sometimes it’s really hard for parents to tell what’s symptomatic and what may be just teenage angst,” he said.

One of the first places many people turn to when they suspect a mental health issue is their primary care doctor.

For this reason, more and more primary care offices are employing mental health professionals.

Often, however, people struggling with mental illness don’t know where to turn, he said.

“We’ve got a lot of really good resources here,” he said. “And a lot of times we just assume people know where to go. And they don’t.”

In some cases, a loved one’s mental illness may have reached a point where he or she does not believe treatment is needed. Those people sometimes believe the friends and family trying to help are conspiring against them.

“That’s what really is hard to get your mind around,” he said.

How to get help

911: For a crisis

211: A social-service hotline with operators able to take information and steer callers in the right direction based on each situation.

Suicide hotline: 800-522-9054, available 24 hours, seven days a week.

Mental Health Association Oklahoma: 918-585-1213 (Tulsa) and 405-943-3700 (Oklahoma City). Website is mhaok.org. Offers advocacy, housing programs and guidance based on the individual situation.

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Oklahoma: 405-607-6018. Advocacy and support groups. namioklahoma.org

NAMI Tulsa, 918-587-6264 or NAMI-Tulsa@sbcglobal.net, namitulsa.org

Four are located in the Tulsa and surrounding counties:

• Counseling and Recovery Services: 918-492-2554. Its main office is at 7010 S. Yale Ave. and also has a Sand Springs office at 401 E. Broadway Court. Website is crsok.org

• Family and Children's Services: To make an appointment and get information, call 918-587-9471. For a crisis, call the 24-hour hotline at 918-744-4800. Website is fcsok.org

• CREOKS: Has 17 clinics and nearly a dozen satellite areas in northeast Oklahoma serving over 170 communities. Call 877-327-3657 or go to its online service locator at creoks.org

An online behavioral health services treatment locator can narrow down programs based on address: https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/

Private insurance carriers usually have a contact number on the card to call to determine what providers are within the insurance network.

Michael Brose: Crisis, tension and opportunity in our downtown

As with many communities across the country, Tulsa’s downtown development and business expansion has created focus, and tension, around the issues of homelessness, untreated mental illness, substance abuse, and panhandling. No longer can people in crisis be ignored, or given a dollar to help us feel better, or arrested for minor, non-violent crimes only to be released to start the endless cycle all over again. Opportunity is all around us for permanent solutions that benefit everyone, including those who suffer, and are disenfranchised, from the blessings of a wealthy community.

However, there are barriers — of our own making — preventing us from using our vast knowledge and resources to solve our problems. The truth is we are siloed in our business practices within our communities of comfort, repeating to ourselves, and each other, the same old ineffective, simplistic solutions to highly complex issues. We can’t do this alone. Everyone has to be at the same table. The social services community, of which I belong, is trying to break down our own set of silos through the efforts of A Way Home 4 Tulsa, a collaboration of 24 faith-based, private and public organizations. We are working together to end long-term, chronic homelessness in our community. Together we are working towards a day when no one will have to live trapped in a cycle of living on the streets and shelters. All of us involved in the process will testify to how hard it is to stop pointing fingers and move into the tough decisions of doing things differently in a more coordinated, collaborative manner.

The social services community on its own cannot effectively achieve permanent policies and strategies to mitigate the endless cycle that leaves our most vulnerable citizens on the streets, in emergency rooms or in jail. A Way Home 4 Tulsa has reached out to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, the mayor’s office, the sheriff, the Tulsa County Commissioners, Tulsa Police Department, private funders, and the downtown business community. For the most part, the response has been very favorable. But is the collaboration at a level of communication, and coordinated strategy required to address effectively these issues? Not even close.

Will other groups and communities need to be brought to the table? Sheriff Stanley Glanz has brought in representatives from EMSA, Tulsa Fire Department, and Tulsa Police Department, along with others, to discuss integrated strategies to keep people who are in an untreated state of mental illness and addiction out of the jail and directed toward treatment. Tulsa’s Municipal Court has stepped up with a highly effective special services court. This is a good start. But is the recent conflict between the Tulsa County and the city of Tulsa around the jail issues a barrier to help us get to where we all want to go? Yes, and a big one. While John 3:16 Mission, and the Salvation Army, are at the table with A Way Home 4 Tulsa, are other faith communities needed to enter the dialogue to stem the tide of rogue downtown feedings and to bring their vast resources to the table? Yes.

People often tell me that if we just had more money from the state, we could fix everything. My answer is always the same: “We may need more money, but we won’t really know until we can figure out how to use the money we have in a more effective, integrated manner.” While this is difficult to achieve, I am very aware of the level of integrity and commitment of the major players involved. Everyone touched by this growing crisis wants to help. But we need each other, and the sooner we can sit down and set our differences aside, the quicker we can work together to see real, meaningful results to the benefit of all Oklahomans.

Michael Brose is executive director of Mental Health Association Oklahoma. This column is part of the Tulsa World “Hitting Home” series on mental illness and homelessness.

Resources often scarce to treat children with mental illnesses

Read previous stories on the issues.

The task was straightforward enough for students of an area English class — they were to pen their own poems after reading selections of Robert Frost.

However, red flags arose when the teacher noticed one student’s poetry involved an inordinate number of references to death. After probing deeper, an adult learned the child was having suicidal thoughts.

And that child isn’t alone, even though a dearth of mental illness resources in Oklahoma could create that feeling.

In a given year in the state, about 1 in 5 youths — or more than 60,000 children ages 13 to 18 — will struggle with mental wellness issues, says state mental health commissioner Terri White.

Conservative estimates find that 40 percent of Oklahoma’s youths suffering from a mental illness are unable to access appropriate care, according to reports gathered by her agency. It rises to 70 percent in adults, many of whom began experiencing symptoms as kids that went untreated.

Early intervention is crucial because the sooner professionals step in to treat a disease, the better the prognosis for recovery, White said.

Programs such as Systems of Care — an Oklahoma Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services effort that encompasses multiple agencies to streamline resources and better connect children and families to care — achieve amazing outcomes, White said. The Mental Health Department says data shows that after only six months of wraparound services there are reductions of 53 percent in school detentions, 48 percent in arrests, 39 percent in self-harm attempts, and 30 percent in out-of-home placements.

Systems of Care, also commonly referred to in the city as Wraparound Tulsa, is available in 70 of 77 counties and has five Tulsa sites — Counseling & Recovery Services of Oklahoma, Youth Services of Tulsa, Family & Children’s Services, Indian Health Care Resource Center of Tulsa and the alternative school Phoenix Rising.

However, a lack of resources remains despite investment in recent years by the governor and lawmakers, White said.

“When we’re working from decades of underfunding, we simply haven’t caught up yet,” White said. “We have the second highest rate of mental illness in the United States, yet our funding still hovers around 45th per capita.

“So even with the progress and leadership we’ve seen from the Capitol, we still have a long way to go to make up for it.”

Bridging that gap includes identifying warning signs of possible mental illness in children, some of which are much more overt and potentially harmful to others.

A transfer student from a rural district was acting out and cursing teachers in school. At times the 17-year-old would become agitated enough to flip a desk and storm out. She skipped long stretches of school and was known to contemplate suicide.

Faith Crittenden, a therapist with Family & Children’s Services, said both of the cases mentioned are students she has worked with during her 10 years in the field. The former is a recent referral to her, while the latter student represents perhaps her favorite tale of success.

Crittenden, who operates in a number of schools across multiple districts in the Tulsa area, said the teen had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 4. With a year of therapy and medication, the diagnosis was wiped away, along with her Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Crittenden explained she had been misdiagnosed as bipolar because people were looking at the symptoms and not the underlying cause, which was “huge trauma.”

The girl improved markedly in the classroom and has since gone on to college.

“Those are the things you put in your ‘good things to read on bad days file’ and remember why you get into this work, when you have successes like that,” Crittenden said.

Barriers to treatment

Experts with Family & Children’s Services, Counseling & Recovery Services of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services point out several barriers to treatment, most of which arise from social stigmas or being unable to differentiate typical youthful behaviors from potential mental health problems.

“Mental illness is scary,” said Whitney Downie, chief program officer of children’s mental health and family support for Family & Children’s Services. “I think people are still fairly uncomfortable with it.”

Crittenden said parents shouldn’t feel shame in seeking out services or advice for their children.

“It’s a brave thing to let somebody into your world and let them help,” Crittenden said.

Two local organizations stressed that money shouldn’t be a barrier, either.

Counseling & Recovery Services of Oklahoma says funding from the Mental Health Department allows it to help any child in need of services regardless of income or insurance. Beverly Moore, community relations director, said families don’t pay for services if they are at or below 200 percent of the poverty level.

Additionally, she said families of children at the CALM Center in Tulsa or in Wraparound Tulsa aren’t billed for what SoonerCare or private insurance doesn’t cover.

“The sliding scale for children’s outpatient services is explained during the first appointment,” Moore said. “This first appointment is always free.”

Family & Children’s Services says it uses United Way funding, along with local, state and federal grants and private donations to help remove as many financial hurdles for families as possible.

“No matter the financial situation, we will work with adults or the caregivers to make sure children receive the treatment they need,” Downie said.

However, even when financial means are not a concern, resources can still be scarce.

White said with fewer than 20 practicing child psychiatrists in Oklahoma, patients can experience lengthy wait times or long drives for treatment.

White would like to see mental health screenings available in pediatricians’ offices, through primary care physicians and also within school-based settings. The screenings would be similar to hearing and vision tests routinely given to students.

She said it would help cut down on the gap between when a child develops a disorder and when it is diagnosed. She said it can take between six and 23 years from the first symptoms to treatment.

Identifying struggling kids

Half of all mental illnesses begin by age 14, and three-quarters of mental illnesses manifest by age 24, according to White. She also said the median age for the onset of anxiety or impulse-control disorders is 11 years old.

“These diseases typically start during youth,” White said.

Andre Campbell, the Systems of Care project director for Counseling & Recovery Services of Oklahoma, said understanding a child’s needs is a key to a correct diagnosis.

A higher-functioning child may be able to voice when they realize they feel different from their peers, Campbell said, but lower-functioning kids may think their feelings are the norm.

He said disassociation may occur when a youth separates him- or herself from trauma to avoid experiencing it. That involves shutting down emotions and functions, as well as articulations.

Outward behaviors may not make sense at first, Campbell said, but when the youth’s needs are understood, then the actions don’t seem so random.

“You wouldn’t drink water unless you’re thirsty or scratch your head unless there’s an itch,” Campbell said.

Downie said adults should be aware of developmental milestones, such as what is typically expected of a fourth-grader. However, she said, a lot of what it boils down to is parents and teachers noticing a change in behavior.

One week a kid may be talkative and the next withdrawn. Or a student is sleepy and talking back — behaviors that are out of character. Maybe she won’t get out of bed for days, or he joins a new group of friends and starts acting out. Maybe she begins hurting herself.

“Kids are really good at kind of giving you hints about something’s not right,” Downie said.

Paying attention and getting mental health treatment early can help prevent more severe problems from developing.

“These medical conditions without treatment can be devastating,” White said. “But with treatment, kids are able to lead full, productive lives — and it’s amazing.”

How to get help

The following are organizations that can be sought out for help with child mental health issues.

Family & Children's Services: Has 49 programs to help children and adults with mental health, substance abuse and family services. The agency has locations in Tulsa, Broken Arrow and Owasso.

Call 918-587-9471 for an appointment or call COPES at 918-744-4800 for crisis service 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Community Outreach Psychiatric Emergency Services responds around the clock to people experiencing severe emotional or behavioral disturbances or psychiatric emergencies.

The CrisisCare Center provides psychiatric beds and crisis respite services 24 hours a day.

Counseling & Recovery Services of Oklahoma: A nonprofit community mental health center, one of 13 under contract with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

Call 918-492-2554 in Tulsa or 918-245-5565 in Sand Springs to make a first appointment, which is free. Call 918-394-2256 anytime for a youth in crisis.

The CALM Center is a safe place for youths ages 10 to 17 to receive immediate support, assessment and stabilization in an emotional, behavioral or substance abuse crisis. Care is provided regardless of ability to pay, and a referral isn't necessary.

Youth Services of Tulsa: A nonprofit community agency that advocates for youth.

The group has offices in Tulsa (918-582-0061), Broken Arrow (918-258-6545), Glenpool (918-321-2233) and Owasso (918-272-5146).

Youth Services offers counseling programs, street outreach services and an around-the-clock shelter for youths ages 12 to 18 in crisis.

Mental Health Association Oklahoma: An advocacy voice for people affected by mental illness.

Call the association at 918-585-1213 or 405-943-3700 to inquire about free mental-health screenings and more. The lines are monitored from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. during weekdays.

The association focuses on housing, education, advocacy, support, recovery and other services to help people achieve victory over and prevent mental illness.

Information compiled from each organization's website.

Tulsa mom recounts 'draining' experience raising two kids with mental disorders

Read previous stories on the issues.

Regina Boyce remembers how awful she felt filing an in-need-of-treatment petition for her older child.

Jeremiah spent six months in Department of Human Services custody, Boyce said, and it was the scariest and toughest thing she ever had to do.

“I felt like I was a bad parent,” she said.

For the past six months, Boyce, 40, has been a family support provider and case manager at Counseling & Recovery Services of Oklahoma. Her sons Jeremiah, 19, and Jordon, 16, both have graduated from Wraparound Tulsa, a program that ties together mental wellness resources to help families and children.

Boyce said she went through several specialists trying to help calm a young Jeremiah’s erratic and odd behavior. A stint on Ritalin only seemed to make matters worse — she was lucky if Jeremiah would sleep even three hours in a 24-hour span.

Boyce discovered Wraparound Tulsa and entered Jeremiah at age 6, where his diagnoses were bipolar, oppositional defiance and ADHD.

Jeremiah graduated from Wraparound Tulsa at 8, but Boyd said it still wasn’t until he was 16 that he was correctly diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum. That came after his arrest for assault and battery on her husband, resulting in a stay at Eagle Creek, a part of Shadow Mountain Behavioral Health.

The stresses generated by Jeremiah’s behavior affected Jordon, Boyce said, and led him to develop severe social anxiety and depression. As a result, he became a cutter — a person who harms themselves by cutting into their skin to cope with rigors of life.

He entered Wraparound Tulsa at age 13, graduating within a 12-month period.

Boyce, who was a single mother through several years of the family’s journey, shared her experiences with the Tulsa World to help others suffering through similar circumstances.

When did you first suspect something was different with Jeremiah, and what led you to believe that?

I realized by the age of 6 months there was something not right. He was a very fussy baby — almost colicky without being colicky. I was just unable to soothe him, wasn’t bonding well. By the time he was a year old, we were already going through the meltdowns. Everybody I kept asking said, “Oh, he’s just a boy. This is just how boys are.” So it wasn’t really until my youngest one came that I realized this isn’t a typical boy. My other one bonded, he was easy to be soothed — just completely different.

What else were you experiencing as this behavior went along?

He didn’t play like a typical toddler. He would go dump his toy box upside down and just stare at it like he had no clue what to do with it and walk off. A typical toddler is going to find something in that toy box that grabs their attention and go play with it. He just wouldn’t. We’d go to the store, and he wouldn’t have just your typical temper tantrum. He would have a complete meltdown, where you’re literally picking him up and carrying him out of the store just screaming and sobbing mad. You just can’t console him.

How did this affect you personally, as well as your family?

It’s very draining. Me, personally, I went through my own bouts of depression just because you get so wore out you can’t even — while they’re at school you don’t even get a break because you’re literally sitting around waiting for that phone call and them going, “He’s just exhausted. You’ve got to come get him.” I think it probably affected Jordon the most because Jordon was never able to have a normal childhood because Jeremiah created so much chaos in the home.

How did treatment ultimately go?

Jeremiah went into Wraparound Tulsa when he was 6 years old. He graduated at 8. I learned how to manage the behaviors; I learned a lot of the focus for our family was teaching me that I had to put myself first. I had to take care of myself. We managed pretty well until he hit those teenage years, and it was kind of a whole new ballgame.

And it was a ballgame I wasn’t prepared for.

In what ways were you not prepared?

With the added hormones and everything, his aggression level was taken to an entirely new level. He was punching holes in the walls, he tried turning the side-by-side refrigerator over on me, he was stabbing holes in the walls with knives — it was a whole new level of chaos.

You mentioned earlier that this may have affected Jordon most of all, can you explain that?

Jordon was never allowed to have a normal childhood. He had two friends that were friends of the family and those were the only real friends he could feel comfortable inviting over to the house because he didn’t want people to come over and see Jeremiah having a meltdown and then judging him off what his brother’s behaviors were. So Jordon withdrew a lot from socializing at school. It ended up that he turned to online social networking to have friends — if that’s what you can really call them — and he ended up falling in with the “emo” group and … becoming a cutter.

How are things for you and your family now?

Things are good. Jordon hasn’t cut in over two years, and Jeremiah was able to live on his own successfully for a year and a half. He had a little run in with the law so he’s back with me temporarily. Things are going fairly well. Given the situation, they could be a lot worse.

What about your experiences led you to do what you do now?

I want to give back what I’ve received. Because I really honestly don’t know where my family would be right now had I not found Wraparound. I had an awesome (family support provider) of my own. And I want to be able to help other families that are going through what I’ve been through. I don’t want to see a child that becomes that revolving door at a hospital.

What advice do you have to offer for other parents?

Don’t stop seeking. If your gut’s telling you you aren’t getting the right diagnosis and the right treatment, there’s always other options. And don’t settle. It’s your child; he’s got one shot at having a good childhood. And don’t give up.

Gail Lapidus: Speak up for children's mental health

This holiday season I am grateful for all the abundance in my life, most especially my family — my children, grandchildren, nieces and nephew who are all blessed with health, goodness and vitality.

If only every child’s story was like this. Unfortunately, the daily headlines tell otherwise. The news media portrays a sadly accurate picture — atrocious stories of child abuse and neglect, child endangerment, parental incarceration and children living in families where violence, addiction and mental illness reside.

Our professional staff see the same troubling reality on the front lines of the battle to improve mental health. Consider these numbers:

Many children live in poverty — nearly one-fourth in Tulsa County alone. Some live in harsh conditions with long-term threats to family income, housing and even more basic needs such as food. Even more disturbing is the recently reported news that Oklahoma has the fifth worst ranking in the nation of children who are homeless. To top it all off, Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than any country in the world, which leaves thousands of their children motherless and vulnerable.

These horrific conditions, traumas and adverse childhood experiences along with brain architecture and genetics, significantly increase the risk of childhood mental health disorders, at no fault of the child.

Actually, one in five children suffers from a serious mental health disorder that impairs their life at home, at school and with peers.

Without help, childhood mental health disorders can persist and lead to a downward spiral of intense emotional suffering, disruptive behaviors, increased substance abuse, and a higher rate of suicide, along with violence, juvenile justice involvement and school failure.

We are told by teachers and school personnel that high on the list of challenges that interfere with students’ ability to succeed in school, are the growing numbers of mental health disorders impacting students.

Despite this grim picture, there is great hope. Through early identification, and treatment, children and adolescents suffering from mental health troubles can find healing and recovery.

Every day Family and Children’s Services is honored to have the opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of children and families across metro Tulsa.

Our children’s mental health professionals provide a variety of evidenced-based treatment approaches proven to be the most effective in restoring children’s functioning and family wellbeing following traumatic events.

Even though we treat thousands of children each year, many children still don’t receive the specialized professional care they need. This is where you come into the picture.

Consider a troubled child you may know through family, friends, co-workers, fellow church members or in any other social circle.

Follow your instincts. When you sense a child or family is in need and calling out for help, lend a hand. Ask if they are getting professional services. Offer to make a referral or call Family & Children’s Services for consultation or assistance at 918-587-9471.

This holiday season, remember to give thanks for your own bounty and that giving just a little of your time and a helping hand might make a life-changing difference for a child.

Gail Lapidus is CEO of Family and Children’s Services. This column is part of the Tulsa World “Hitting Home” series on mental illness and homelessness.

Official: Tulsa Jail has become 'state's largest mental health facility'

Read previous stories on the issues.

Beams of sunlight that streak into the pod from high above a tiny indoor “activity room” are tantalizingly out of reach for the inmates housed in the Tulsa Jail’s mental health unit.

For 23 hours a day, these 20 inmates are alone, confined in small, gray, graffitied cells behind heavy steel doors and thick glass that is often spiderwebbed with cracks inflicted by previous occupants.

The jail, according to Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office governmental affairs director Terry Simonson, has become, for better or worse, the state’s largest mental health facility.

It’s quiet in the pod. Detention Officers Travis Fritz and Mitchell Phillips are keeping an eye on things, yet it doesn’t take much to set things off — even something small can cause a domino effect, jailers say, where inmates rile each other up.

“If (an inmate) doesn’t spit or throw human waste on you, that’s a good day,” Deputy Chris Cook said.

Written in marker on a white board are the names of the 43 inmates housed in pod F24, where Fritz and Phillips work. Next to each name scribbled on the board — 20 of whom are classified as “mental health inmates” — is a symbol denoting some type of restriction: “This inmate spits, this inmate assaults officers,” and so on.

Next to four of the names, the words “throws human waste” are written. Next to two of those names, the word “loaf” appears.

A loaf, it turns out, is pretty much just what it sounds like. All the food an inmate would typically receive is blended and mashed into one object, then baked into a loaf.

“That’s usually done because they can’t be given a container,” Fritz said. “They’ll fill it up with urine and feces and throw it at us.”

As the jail’s population swells, so will the number of inmates in need of mental health assistance. The two figures are intimately tied together, and despite a recently launched court program designed to divert those who need social services more than they need jail, the numbers keep rising.

That leaves hundreds of mentally ill inmates housed in what even officials describe as unpleasant conditions. But it’s the best the jail has to offer.

For now.

The population

Previous estimates by jailers had about 600 inmates in the jail at any given time on some form of psychotropic drug, Simonson said. Since a new medical provider took over in 2014, those numbers have dropped, but they’re still in the hundreds.

Often, those drugs allow mentally ill inmates to function in general population.

But when they don’t, or when the inmate doesn’t want to take medication (the jail can’t force them to, unless they’re a potential harm to themselves or others), they’re housed in either the mental health pod or the medical unit.

The medical unit houses the inmates on suicide watch, and those cells are as stark and sparse as possible. At most, they contain a toilet and a blue plastic bed in the middle of the cell. Others have just a toilet.

That’s done for good reason, said Kathy Loehr, health service administrator at the jail. Suicidal inmates will use anything they can to harm themselves, she said.

On this day, two workers are in the only empty cell, polishing a floor where the tile was recently removed. Suicidal inmates, Loehr said, were breaking the tile in order to cut themselves.

After the tile was removed, two inmate workers were slathering what had been drab yellowish walls with a light blue paint, said, according to Cook, to have a soothing effect. If that didn’t work, there was a picture on the wall of a sunny beach. Next to the image was a letter.

“Do not hit yourself,” it urged. “Look at this nice picture instead.”

The “suicide watch” cells are a striking example of the difficulty of treating the people placed there. In one, a man lies on the floor with nothing but a quilted green blanket. The lone window, which only shows the medical wing of the jail, not the outside world, is covered by a gray tarp, connected to the window by magnets. Every 15 minutes, a detention officer walks by and pulls one magnet down to take a look.

“See that foot that’s sticking out of the blanket?” Cook asks after peeling the tarp back. “That’s how I know there’s a living person in there.” The man is completely covered in the blanket, so Cook waits a few seconds at the window, then covers it with the tarp. He was watching the blanket to see if the man inside it was breathing.

Changes to the jail

When the Tulsa Jail was constructed, it wasn’t built with the mindset of “treating the mentally ill,” Cook said. About 15 years after the building’s completion, the jail has become, by necessity, much more than just a place that houses inmates as they await trial.

The medical unit inside the jail resembles a full-time hospital, and in a way, it is. Though the staff is small, there are workers there around the clock, and the medical issues inmates deal with aren’t unlike what you would see at a typical hospital.

“The jail, when it was designed, it wasn’t necessarily designed to be a health clinic,” Simonson said. “It’s as much about public health now as public safety. At the end of the day, everyone in that facility is going to get out — either back into the community or to another facility, and we have to make sure they’re all taken care of, and that goes for mental and physical (aspects).”

If all goes well, at this point next year, at least one more “mental health pod” could be available, thanks to a 15-year, 0.026 percent sales tax passed in April to fund the construction and operation of four new pods. While the entirety of the program will likely not be finished until 2017, officials said completing the mental health pod will be their immediate focus.

“We decided we would start with the mental health pod first because it’s more of a specialty unit,” Simonson said. “General population pods aren’t hard to design, but a mental health unit is different.”

The design of the new pod’s interior is still somewhat up in the air, but it will likely look similar to designs Simonson and others saw in August during a trip to Florida. He, Mike Brose, executive director of the Mental Health Association Oklahoma, and a group of others went to see what different facilities there offered the mentally ill.

“Since (the Tulsa Jail) is now the largest mental health facility in eastern Oklahoma, we wanted to make sure the architectural design we choose is right,” Simonson said. “Facilities do matter in outcomes, but it’s also what you do in the facility that matters, and what you do in the facility is largely led by the way it’s laid out.

“Unless you’re violently mentally ill, locking you up for 23 hours a day is not going to produce results.”

Curing the jail’s mental health issue

When the new mental health pod is completed, it will no doubt be an improvement over current conditions at the jail, Brose said.

But the end game for both the jail and the mental health community in Tulsa is not necessarily new jail beds for the mentally ill — it’s keeping them out of jail in the first place.

Brose has worked in concert with jail administrators as the new pod design has been developed. But he’s also worked on what might be the first of many steps in the process of diverting the mentally ill away from incarceration for non-violent crimes.

In May, the city held its first municipal “special services docket,” a diversion program allowing the homeless and/or mentally ill to work toward a clean legal slate by receiving court-mandated treatment instead of fines or jail time.

The first docket was a bit of a shot in the dark, Brose said. They can’t force people to attend, and even the ones who show up don’t necessarily have to agree to abide by the court’s conditions.

Six months later, the program is an unquestioned success. At the latest docket, more than 40 defendants attended with at least a dozen mental health professionals. Multiple people graduated from the program and others are on track to graduate in the coming months, earning a fresh start both legally and mentally.

But while successful, that program amounts to a drop in the bucket, Brose said. Ultimately, other programs will have to sprout up if progress is to continue.

And that progress should be visible.

“That’s when we’ll know we’re successful — when the treatment system comes under strain,” Brose said. “At that point, we’ll know people are being diverted from jail.

“It’s going to take a lot of work, a lot of working together. I don’t think anyone is naive about how complicated this is.”

How to get help

Contact information for how to get help for emergencies or mental-health issues:

911: For a crisis.

211: A social-service hotlinewith operators able to take information and steer callers in the right direction based on each situation.

Suicide hotline: 800-522-9054, available 24 hours, seven days a week.

Mental Health Association Oklahoma: 918-585-1213 (Tulsa) and 405-943- 3700 (Oklahoma City). Website is mhaok.org. Offers advocacy, housing programs and guidance based on the individual situation.

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Oklahoma: 405-607-6018. Advocacy and support groups. namioklahoma.org

NAMI Tulsa, 918-587-6264 or NAMI-Tulsa@ , namitulsa. org

Four are located in Tulsa and surrounding counties:

• Counseling and Recovery Services: 918-492-2554. Its main office is at 7010 S. Yale Ave. and also has a Sand Springs office at 401 E. Broadway Court. Website is crsok.org.

• Family & Children’s Services: Has 49 programs to help children and adults with mental health, substance abuse and family services. The agency has locations in Tulsa, Broken Arrow and Owasso. Call 918-587-9471 for an appointment or call COPES at 918-744-4800 for crisis service 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

• CREOKS: Has 17 clinics for mental-health issues and nearly a dozen satellite areas in northeast Oklahoma serving more than 170 communities. Call 877-327-3657 or go to its online service locator at creoks.org.

An online behavioral health services treatment locator can narrow down programs based on address: https://findtreatment. samhsa.gov/.

Private insurance carriers usually have a contact number on the card to call to determine what providers are within the insurance network.

Mentally ill in the Tulsa jail

At any given time, there are between 1,700-1,800 inmates at the Tulsa County Jail, according to Capt. Bill McKelvey, and somewhere between 500-600 of those inmates are on some form of psychotropic drug.

According to the most recent figures available (through September,) the jail averages 164 inmates each month who either admit to having a mental illness or have been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Month	Total
January	227
February	206
March	207
April	163
May	124
June	124
July	130
Aug	150
September	148

Stanley Glanz: Why are we jailing the mentally ill?

I am sure when the public read about the city and county disagreeing over the operation of the jail that it appeared that we had forgotten how to work better together on the issue of community incarceration. Even the conservative Koch Brothers and the liberal George Soros agree that America’s practice of mass incarcerations is a moral and practical failure. They have joined with the unlikely allies of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, Newt Gingrich, the ACLU and others to condemn the fact that the United States of America locks up more of its population than any nation in human history.

I believe that if these guys can agree on this and pledge to do something about it, then surely we can too.

Often the misuse of the jail is a result of mandatory sentencing, the war on drugs, the profiteering of private prisons or the political glee of being “tough on crime.” It can also be the results of an easy answer for police. For the first 10 months of this year Tulsa police booked into jail 1,229 individuals who reported being homeless, and they booked 1,479 who either said they have been diagnosed with or are being treated for mental illness. These are costly decisions to incarcerate that seldom have any beneficial outcomes.

Jails are necessary. But their legitimate purposes are limited to the temporary holding of accused people who cannot safely be released while their cases are resolved and the short-term incarceration of people who cannot otherwise be hold accountable for their offenses.

Of the nearly 1,800 prisoners in jail, most have committed nonviolent crimes. At least one-third of them are under medical treatment for mental illness. The cost to the taxpayers is beyond exact measurement, but we do know that keeping and treating a mentally ill prisoner in jail costs the taxpayers a lot more than the $45 per day bargain which the city has been paying.

Aside from the moral and practical failure of overusing the jail, from the city’s standpoint the pathway to controlling its jail cost is very clear. If you have fewer bookings into the jail, your jail costs will go down. It’s that simple. The best way to control jail cost starts up front and in the hands of the police officer by keeping a certain population out of the jail in the first place.

There are ways in which diversion from jail of those with mental illness can occur but it will take a comprehensive, not piecemeal, reform strategy that includes the police, courts, prosecutors, jailers, pre-trial release, and the community which is focused on reducing the overuse and misuse of jails.

This comprehensive reform strategy must accomplish these objectives: reducing the flow of people into jail; keeping jail terms to a minimum; finding alternative approaches to punishment and sanctions; using jails more effectively, and supporting efforts of diversion programs that can be used by police officers at the front end and would also be available upon the release of inmates at the back end.

Key to these reforms is police officer training. This training must be focused on evidence-based decision making by the officer in the field. Under that model, officers learn the proper mental health questions to ask those confronted, to recognize the proper evidence of mental illness, to ascertain if confinement is an absolute necessity in order to assure court appearances and public safety, and to be knowledgeable of the diversion options from jail.

We will always have mentally ill people in our jail. And thankfully this past spring the voters of Tulsa County supported adding mental health pods to the jail in 2015.

In Tulsa, we embrace the idea of conducting large community summits to address issues like drug abuse and domestic violence where we bring the community together to solve problems. It’s time that we held the same type of community gathering to address the incarceration of the mentally ill in order to find a more humane resolution.

Stanley Glanz is sheriff of Tulsa County. This column is part of the Tulsa World “Hitting Home” series on mental illness and homelessness.

Tulsa's homeless: Struggling with mental illness, many count on downtown services to get through

Hear from some of the people featured in the World’s series, Hitting Home, about the challenges they face each day.

Hitting Home: Stories of struggle ... finding a way home

The Rev. Stephen L. McKee: Seeing the homeless as God's gift

Tulsa World Editorial: Mental health and homelessness hit home

A few days before Thanksgiving, Morgana Blevins packed up the flowered hatbox holding her treasures, fetched her three cats from a pet shelter and moved into her own place.

For the past few months, she’s lived at the Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless. This was not the first time in her life she’s lacked a place to call home.

Blevins has struggled with bipolar disorder, anxiety and co-dependency her whole life. Her mental health issues have made everything harder for her, including keeping a steady job, holding a lease and maintaining relationships with family.

Spending the past few months at the Day Center and advice from her caseworker, Bailee Hutchinson, have helped steady her and keep her focused on getting a place to live, she said.

While staying at the Day Center, Blevins relied on several downtown nonprofits, churches and services for help. You might have seen her waiting at the bus station to go visit her beloved cats at the Humane Society of Tulsa. Or perhaps in line for lunch at Iron Gate. (Her hatbox was rescued from a Dumpster near Trinity Episcopal Church.)

Downtown Tulsa’s homeless population tends to live and congregate in the city’s center because that is the location of most services designed to assist them, said Sharon Catalano, development director for the Tulsa Day Center.

And it’s the integration and coordination of services like those currently helping Blevins that experts say is critical to curing long-term, chronic homelessness — especially when mental illness is involved.

More than 60 percent of people who are chronically homeless have experiencedlifetime mental health problems, and more than 80 percent have experienced lifetime alcohol and/or drug problems, according to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. About half the time, substance abuse is present with another mental illness.

Blevins said she once struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, but she’s been clean and sober for 16 years now.

“I’ve got a lot of skills I’m working on,” she said. Her cats and Catholic prayer books help, she said.

Blevins has spent large periods of her life homeless, in Oklahoma and Washington state. She most recently lived in Nevada, but said Washington had far better mental health services.

She moved back to Oklahoma this year to be closer to her family. She had her own apartment for a while, then someone stole all her money and she was evicted, she said. She came back to the Day Center, where she first lived during a period of homelessness when she was homeless in her 20s.

Now, she and her cats finally have a place of their own. She wrote a letter of gratitude to the Day Center staff when she started filling out the lease application: “When faced with your greatest darkness of homelessness, everything seems broken, you’re lost and lonely, all doors seem to be closed.”

Caseworkers such as Hutchinson can spend as long as six months simply trying to get someone a government-issued ID card in order to get medical care or apply for jobs. Getting clients like Blevins into more permanent housing options requires assistance with deposits and setting up utilities, she said.

Those who provide aid to Tulsa’s homeless population say the number of homeless people living and seeking services downtown hasn’t increased, but the population of other people interacting regularly with them has.

The revival of shops, nightlife and activities downtown in recent years has created more opportunities for interaction with the homeless population, which congregates downtown because that’s where the majority of Tulsa’s shelters and services are located.

In the past, homeless services were a loose, occasional collaboration among various ministries, church groups and nonprofits.

A few years ago, Tulsa leaders decided that if the city really wanted to make a dent in its long-term homeless population, it needed to do better.

In 2011, the Community Service Council became the host agency for “A Way Home for Tulsa,” a collaboration of nearly two dozen agencies focused on ending long-term homelessness. One of its facets is an intensive case management method called “Pathways,” that includes mental health treatment when needed.

The idea is to give the individual the ability to help direct their path away from being homeless, said Jim Lyall, associate director of the Community Service Council. The overall goal is to increase those individuals’ capacity for self-sufficiency and maintaining permanent housing.

This approach has helped Tulsa significantly reduce its chronic homeless population almost 13 percent.

“I think we’re making exceptionally good progress,” Lyall said.

‘Not a troublemaker’

Long-term or chronic homelessness is defined as someone staying in a shelter for a minimum of 180 days within a 12-month period. In Tulsa, some of the longer-term homeless individuals who met this definition have stayed an average of 264 nights a year in a shelters.

The first step in getting people the help they need to get well and get off the streets? Getting to know them and what resources could best help them, said Michael Brose, executive director of Mental Health Association Oklahoma.

“Relationships with people take time,” he said.

Brose is giving a tour of the agency’s Altamont house when a redhead named Dawn runs out to greet him with a bear hug.

Brose recalls seeing her sitting on a bus bench several years ago, in the pouring rain.

“I just said a little prayer, and then she showed up,” he said.

She’s now been at Altamont long enough to move from one of the smaller safe-haven units to one of the larger, permanent apartments upstairs.

Altamont was a hotel in the 1930s, and then it was the original site of the addiction treatment program known as 12&12. The Mental Health Association bought the property several years ago and turned it into individual apartments designed to provide emergency and long-term housing for people with mental illness.

Mark, a relatively new resident at Altamont, doesn’t want his picture taken at first and shies away from shaking hands because he fears his hands are too dirty.

Mark came to Altamont from the Tulsa Jail, where he was held in the mental health unit for several months. He was arrested in April after walking into a FedEx store and allegedly trying to set some books on fire with a lighter. He went into the store to buy his mom a present, he said.

“I’m not a troublemaker,” he said.

Tulsa County prosecutors charged him with fourth-degree arson. Eventually, his case was moved to the county’s mental health court.

Mark has schizophrenia and struggled with alcoholism for years until he got sober in 2011, he said. He has three grown children in another state, but hasn’t seen them since they were 10. He’s been struggling with schizophrenia since the 1980s.

Since he moved to Altamont several weeks ago, he is taking his medication and working hard on his community chores around the building, staff said. He’s almost unrecognizable compared to his jail booking mug shot.

“I didn’t realize I looked like Grizzly Adams,” he said.

He weighed 117 pounds when he was booked into jail. He spent nearly six months there before moving into Altamont. Supportive mental health housing options for people like Mark can save taxpayers nearly $35,000 a year compared to incarceration, according to Mental Health Association Oklahoma.

But people like Mark end up in jail and prison cells because as a society, we seem to be OK with untreated mental illness, even when it results in chronic, long-term homelessness, Brose said.

Families often wear out from dealing with the stress of a loved one in a mental health crisis. Individuals with untreated illness sometimes get evicted, and a lack of treatment beds and training for law enforcement lead to costly jail stays that compound these problems, Brose said.

From homeless to givers

Churchgoers at Tulsa’s First Baptist have gotten used to seeing some homeless regulars making their way to the church’s Caring Center, waiting in line for lunch next door at Iron Gate or dropping into First Baptist’s coffee shop for a Bible study offered by the associate pastor, Eric Costanzo.

The more exposure members of his church have had to downtown’s homeless population, Costanzo said, the more they see them as people.

“They just need support and resources like anyone else having a hard time would,” he said. “Mental illness can happen to anyone. That, to me, is an equalizer.”

Many don’t have anyone to help them get back on their feet, so they come downtown for help from churches, nonprofit agencies and ministries that aid the homeless, he said.

Some of the homeless, formerly homeless and mentally ill individuals helped by his church are now members.

“People stay a part of our ministry even after they’re no longer homeless. It’s an amazing thing when a formerly homeless person becomes a giver,” he said.

Mental illness is one of the top three reasons folks end up in line at the Caring Center, he said.

“The biggest thing they need is advocacy,” Costanzo said. “If you have nothing and no support system, where do you go?”

Tulsa’s homeless: How to get (and give) help

Mental Health Association Oklahoma Denver drop-in house, 252 W. 17th Place: A drop-in day facility for adults experiencing the challenges of living with a mental illness or another co-occurring disorder. Open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 9 p.m.

Mental Health Association Oklahoma referral line: 918-585-1213. Open Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless, 415 W. Archer St.: For information about volunteer opportunities, please contact Colleen Helms at 918-556-6418 or chelms@tulsadaycenter.org.

Iron Gate, 501 S. Cincinnati Ave.: To donate food, hold a food drive or volunteer, call 918-359-9007 or email volunteer@irongatetulsa.org.

Salvation Army Center of Hope, 102 N. Denver Ave.: Call 918-587-7801, ext. 113 for information on volunteering.

John 3:16 Mission, 205 E. Pine St., Suite 103: For information on the organization or volunteering, call 918-587-1186.

First Baptist Church of Tulsa Caring Center, 305 S. Detroit Ave.: Offers clothing, food and utility assistance. To volunteer, call 918-587-1571.

Hitting Home: Stories of struggle ... finding a way home

Find out more about the Lindsey House program.

Hear from some of the people featured in the World’s series, Hitting Home, about the challenges they face each day.

Tulsa's homeless: Struggling with mental illness, many count on downtown services to get through

Amber Darden: A young mother

To get Amber Darden away from a life of crime and addiction was no small feat.

When she was arrested on drug manufacturing and firearm possession charges in 2012, friends bailed her out. She went from jail to the casino and stole a car on the way there.

“I just knew my life was over, so I went as hard as I could,” Darden said.

But a second chance and a stable place to live transformed her life. For more than a year, Darden, now 27, has lived with her infant son at the Lindsey House, a transitional living center in downtown Tulsa for women with children who are part of a less visible homeless population: situational homelessness.

Lindsey House, which opened about four years ago, houses 12 families of mothers with up to three children each. Women who live there must work and submit monthly budgets to a caseworker who helps them focus on living within their means and setting up savings accounts. A recent graduate of the program left with zero debt and $10,000 in savings, directors said.

Due to economic hardships, relationship breakups or other emergencies, there are portions of the homeless population — often women with children — living on friends’ couches, out of cars or in cheap motel rooms.

Darden survived in all three for years, with a young daughter and no permanent place to call her own after breaking up with the father of her child. She was drawn into drug life at an early age, and after ending up broke while trying to work as a waitress, she turned to the life she knew could make her money: Guns and drugs.

Meth addiction made her take risks she shouldn’t have, she knows now. Trading sacks of drugs for a place to stay. Living out of motel rooms, checking out each morning and checking back in each evening after hustling to earn the money for another day. Once, she was living out of her car when it was stolen. Gun in hand, she went and got it back.

When she was facing 25 years in prison for meth and gun charges, she found out she was pregnant with her son, Cason. She’s grateful to all who gave her that second chance.

A Tulsa County judge gave her an alternative to prison time through the Women in Recovery program. She found a job through the Center for Employment Opportunities, daycare for her baby at Educare and a place to live at Lindsey House.

“They took my life that was in shambles and turned it around,” she said.

Now, her children are her priority and she’s focused on a career as a building engineer in a local school district. Her 8-year-old daughter lives with the girl’s paternal grandmother, but is able to spend time with Darden and Cason on weekends.

“You’ll never meet someone as grateful as someone who was homeless,” Darden said. “Being able to shut the door to your own room — to have your own socks and pillow — is a lot better than anything else.”

Milton Sheppard: Navigating life’s obstacles

It took a Milton Sheppard a long time to seek treatment.

“My exact words were: ‘I can’t have depression, that’s a mental illness and I’m not mentally ill,’ ” recalled Sheppard, now 64.

But even though he’d had a successful career as a pilot and in video and music production, he was struggling with mental illness. An initial diagnosis didn’t come until his 40s, he said.

It was a tragic series of life events that brought things to a head for Sheppard. His mother fell ill and he moved back to Tulsa. After she died, things fell apart.

Sheppard struggles with bipolar schizoaffective disorder, among other health problems. At one point, he was overmedicated and began to have seizures because of drug interactions and other health issues, he said.

He went from working for Mental Health Association Oklahoma and Family & Children’s Services to being homeless for the first time in his life. He stayed at John 3:16 Mission to get back on his feet, and a friend helped him apply for Social Security Disability Insurance. Everything got better.

“When I came back up, I came up running,” he said. Now, he lives in an immaculate apartment at MHA’s Yale Avenue Apartments. His walls are decorated with certificates reflecting his training and achievements in mental health and peer counseling, and photos of favorite moments from flying planes with friends.

The Yale Avenue Apartments offer affordable housing to individuals with disabilities and market-rate rental units to the general public. Sheppard would be a good neighbor in any apartment complex, but he’s a popular and well-loved tenant at the Yale complex.

He views himself as lucky in life: He’s been able to do all things he’s wanted to do, he said.

“It’s the hardest illness to diagnose. There are no X-rays,” Sheppard said. “More often than not, it’s diagnosed later in life for some reason.

“And even though the stigma has subsided, it is still alive. I can truly understand, having been there, that it is just that: an illness.”

Sheppard hopes his story could help others seek treatment, or open the minds of those who judge people struggling with mental illnesses.

“We’re all human beings with situations in our lives, and sometimes thing get very difficult.”

Tulsa World Editorial: Mental health and homelessness hit home

This week, and stretching into Monday, the Tulsa World has been taking a close look at mental illness and homelessness.

Combining the two topics is a bit misleading, and we want to make two very important points perfectly clear. Most mentally ill people are not homeless. Many homeless people are not mentally ill. In a strange effect of prejudice and ignorance, society’s approach to both the mentally ill and the homeless is falsely colored by the assumption that everyone in one group is either in the other or fast headed there. We hope by looking at the two issues together we can start to understand their commonalities and their distinctions.

Hitting Home is the newspaper’s fourth and final priority story for 2014. The priority stories were selected by the newspaper’s top editors following discussions with our Community Advisory Board last December. Earlier priority story efforts looked at ways to save government costs in the long run by making up-front investments, the state’s efforts to train the next generation of workers and efforts to make Tulsa a more attractive home to the millennial generation.

All four of the series combined the reporting abilities of our news staff and the analytical efforts of the editorial staff. To get a sense of current thought on mental illness and homelessness we invited community leaders in key positions to offer their thoughts in op/ed columns.

On Thursday, Mike Brose, executive director of Mental Health Association Oklahoma, described how A Way Home 4 Tulsa, a collaboration of 24 faith-based, private and public organizations, is working to end long-term chronic homelessness in our community. What a magnificent goal, and one that seems attainable if the group can develop an integrated plan of attack.

On Friday, Gail Lapidus, CEO of Family & Children’s Services, described how the twin issues of homelessness and mental illness impact Oklahoma children. The numbers here are daunting: Nearly a quarter of Tulsa County’s children live in poverty and only four other states have more homeless children than Oklahoma. One in five children suffers from a serious mental health disorder that impairs their life at home, at school and with peers.

On Saturday, Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz asked a provocative question: Why are we jailing the mentally ill? The answer seems to be that we’re doing it because society has run out of options for what else to do with them, but he went on to suggest a comprehensive strategy for diverting mentally ill people from the jail that would be more humane, more effective and more efficient with taxpayer money. We have to say Glanz is onto something that deserves close consideration.

Sunday, we bring you two perspectives on the sometime controversial issue of how to deal with homeless people living downtown. Tom Baker, manager of the Tulsa Downtown Coordinating Council, discusses the need to addressing the needs of the homeless while dealing with criminals who live among and take advantage of the needy. The Rev. Stephen L. McKee, rector of downtown’s Trinity Episcopal Church, makes a compelling argument for answering the call to feed the hungry. (To accommodate Baker and McKee’s pieces, we have changed the Sunday design for page G6. Things will return to normal next week.)

On Monday, you’ll read the story of Connally Perry, who overcame addiction and homelessness, and who is now working to help others do the same thing.

We hope Hitting Home will have an impact, that it will make Tulsans think a bit more deeply about both problems and society’s part in humane, effective solutions.

What to do when someone approaches you panhandling

Hear from some of the people featured in the World’s series, Hitting Home, about the challenges they face each day.

Tulsa's homeless: Struggling with mental illness, many count on downtown services to get through

It’s a question many downtown workers and visitors face each day in Tulsa: What is the best way to handle someone on the street asking you for money?

The Tulsa World compiled advice from staff at the Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless, Mental Health Association Oklahoma, the Community Service Council, the Downtown Coordinating Council and Eric Costanzo, associate pastor at Tulsa’s First Baptist Church, who leads the church’s homeless outreach programs.

First, experts say, understand that panhandlers and the homeless population are not necessarily one and the same.

“Our folks are pretty respectful,” said Sharon Catalano, development director for the Tulsa Day Center. Many of the chronic homeless prefer not to panhandle and know where to go if they need services, she said.

“We’re really working to differentiate panhandling from homelessness,” said Jim Lyall, associate director of the Community Service Council.

There are people downtown in need, and then there are those engaged in “very organized panhandling,” he said, using it to increase their personal income — often for drug and alcohol purchases.

Aggressive panhandling and problematic behavior recently led the city to set a curfew for Plaza of the Americas park and remove benches from one side of Main Street downtown. But Lyall is optimistic about the groups working together to better address the needs of the city’s homeless population.

“We’re working together more than we ever have ... to try to bridge that understanding,” he said.

Tom Baker, executive director of the Downtown Coordinating Council, said downtown Tulsa is not a place for anyone to be afraid to come. His council has been working with city leaders, police, the Chamber of Commerce and social service agencies to find solutions to panhandling and vandalism issues.

“We need to recognize the impact of this situation on the economic vitality of downtown is real,” Baker said.

Some businesses and property owners have voiced concerns in recent months about losing tenants or customers due to panhandling or vandalism, he said.

“We’ve got to do a better job than we have been doing,” he said.

Some panhandlers are simply individuals seeking money for drugs and alcohol who have found a quick and easy way to get it, officials said. In recent years, Tulsa has had a particular problem with aggressive panhandlers who are using or seeking the drug K2, a synthetic form of marijuana that causes hallucinations and other dangerous side effects.

Reconsider simply handing out money, experts said. Offer a meal, gas, bus tokens or a referral to a charitable organization instead of money. Engage the person seeking help and educate yourself on what services are available to help them.

“It is important that we recognize the giving nature of Tulsans,” Lyall said. “We need to rechannel that kind of giving to accomplish better outcomes leading to housing and a healthy life.”

Some organizations offer tokens or cards that you can give to someone asking for help. The John 3:16 Mission offers “compassion cards” you can download and print from its website that feature its phone number and offer the recipient free rides to the shelter for services.

Be friendly and show respect by looking a homeless person in the eye and greeting him or her, Costanzo advised. Don’t assume everyone who asks for help is lying; many have genuine needs.

Do not respond or talk to an apparently disturbed person who is behaving abnormally. If someone behaves aggressively or follows you, keep walking and find a safe place to call for help.

The Rev. Stephen L. McKee: Seeing the homeless as God's gift

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: For thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

— Hebrews 13:2

Some of you may well know the Bible verses where we are enjoined to feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; visit the sick and the imprisoned; clothe the naked and welcome the stranger. This is found in the 25th chapter of Matthew.

I firmly believe that being a downtown church is a blessing. It is a blessing because we are located where people need us. All we have to do is look out our office window or into our parking lot to see human need.

But, it is not always easy to see this need as a blessing. You can hear the unruly behavior outside your office window. You can hear the shouted obscenities. It makes us uncomfortable. On our streets we see unkempt individuals suffering from mental illness and substance abuse. We see many homeless persons — the modern day equivalent of Biblical lepers.

Often we want to look away. Sometimes we fear for our safety and those of others. We want them to go away. We don’t want to see their hunger, their poverty, their need. But that is the blessing of being a downtown church. Several years ago, the church undertook a renovation. We relocated our front entrance and the main entrance to Iron Gate next to each other. Iron Gate is a food assistance ministry that feeds 600 people every day of the year, from 8 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. Some say this was as bad move. That it makes people uncomfortable and threatened during hours of operation. But the point is that we can see each other. We see the need every day through our guests at Iron Gate.

Not all who come to Iron Gate for food assistance are homeless; many are the working poor. All are hungry.

Jesus did not avoid the lepers, the sinners, the sick, the hungry, the outcasts. He sought them out. He spent his time with them.

At Trinity, a downtown church, the needy seek us out. They are God’s gift to us. They are a blessing to us. This may puzzle some. It may alarm some, especially those you have had unfortunate encounters with the homeless downtown.

They are gifts to us because we get to fulfill the injunction found in Matthew’s gospel: to feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; visit the sick and the imprisoned; clothe the naked and welcome the stranger; to treat them like fellow travelers along the way. This does not mean that we excuse unacceptable behavior. It does not mean we don’t call people in authority when people’s behavior gets out of control. But we act out of goodness and compassion in imitation of Jesus himself.

Our taking care of each other is what makes a great city.

Being mindful of ‘the least of these’ is part of the journey of becoming a great city.

The Rev. Stephen L. McKee is rector Trinity Episcopal Church. This column is part of the Tulsa World “Hitting Home” series on mental illness and homelessness.

Thomas Baker: The impact of the homeless on downtown

It is difficult for me to have a conversation critical of homelessness and any negative impact it has on our downtown. That is why it is important to recognize there are real Tulsa citizens who are homeless or ill prepared in other ways to live a different or better life and need our help and support.

At the same time there others who converge on the same areas for the opportunity to take advantage of the homeless. It is their conduct that creates the negative impact and outcomes that must be addressed.

The conduct of this group can result in businesses relocating, as nobody wants their customers, employees or themselves exposed to panhandling, trash left from encampments, or any illicit activity. The result is owners being unable to market their product. If left unaddressed, the economic vitality of downtown and the resources that service agencies rely on will be affected.

With progress we know come growing pains. While this current situation is not helpful, it’s a consequence of the incredible work being done to improve downtown Tulsa. This has little to do with the homeless that need our help. This has everything to do with the opportunists who we must address as we continue to grow our city. How are we doing that?

First, the Downtown Coordinating Council and Tulsa Regional Chamber started a dialog with downtown social service providers to identify ways to support the work they are doing.

These discussions were approached recognizing the exceptional work various service agencies provide on an ongoing basis, asking how we continue to work toward minimizing these living situations; and to identify any role the city and chamber of commerce can play to improve the current conditions. From their recommendations:

• Mayor Bartlett has convened a group of downtown executives and social service board members to review and guide this work as recommendations are implemented.

• A new communications plan has been endorsed by the A Way Home 4 Tulsa (AWH4T) council and funds are being raised to implement the project. The plan is designed as an outreach program to inform Tulsans factually on the homeless issue; give advice on how to respond to panhandling and the “why not” of giving to panhandlers.

• Collaboration among city agencies (parks, policy, mental helath, city security and the coordinating council) has already made a positive impact on conditions in one of our downtown parks, the Plaza of the Americas at Seventh Street and Denver Avenue. This collaboration continues to focus on other areas downtown.

• The Homeless Outreach Coordinating Committee task-force is working to establish just who is homeless and who is not.

Our main focus is, and will be, to find solutions and offer support for Tulsans who are unable, at this time, to realize a quality of life the rest of us appreciate.

We will also continue to allow those who are unwilling to live within the public policies of our city to be accountable for their conduct.

To this end, on Sept. 1, the Tulsa Police Department assigned a unit of four officers, a sergeant and a downtown business liaison officer who are dedicated to serving downtown Tulsa. This is in addition to the regularly assigned beat officer who covers downtown and the three public safety ambassadors from the downtown coordinating council.

This team is responding to the needs and calls from owners, business customers, employees and downtown visitors.

Downtown Tulsa is moving forward with a solid commitment toward growth in economy and quality of life. We continue to work as a team to support our evolving community that is our downtown Tulsa.

Thomas Baker, former chief of the Tulsa Fire Department and former Tulsa City Council member, is manager of the Tulsa Downtown Coordinating Council. This column is part of the Tulsa World “Hitting Home” series on mental illness and homelessness.

Father walks with son through a life of mental illness

Read all the stories and see the videos from the 'Hitting Home' series

Families take on the role of helping loved ones with mental illness

Peers, positivity keep a man's mental health in a good place

Steve Lyons looks around the bare, west Tulsa house and explains to his 43-year-old son that some rules must be followed for him to stay.

Lyons bought the house about two months ago out of desperation. His son, Dustin Lyons, has treatment-resistant paranoid schizophrenia and was arrested Aug. 12, while he was homeless, for drug possession. For 20 years, he has bounced between evictions and homelessness because he is unable to manage the violence caused by his disease.

As he sat in jail, his dad found a cheap house a few feet from the railroad tracks. It's a last-ditch effort at keeping his son off the streets.

"This is a trial, son," Lyons said as they sat in the home. "If this doesn't work, you are out of options. You are back on the street."

"I'm not doing anything wrong, sir," his son said.

"A rule is you have to take your medication every day. Did you take your medicine this past week?" Lyons asked.

"Most of it. Not all of it. I just forgot sometimes," his son said.

"You can remember coffee and cigarettes. You have to take your medication every day," Lyons said.

Dustin Lyons is among the more than 633,000 Oklahomans with a mental illness. Oklahoma is second in the nation for the percentage of people with a mental disease, trailing only Utah. When it comes to severe mental illness, Oklahoma follows just West Virginia, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Yet, about 70 percent of Oklahomans needing mental health treatment are not getting the appropriate services, according to the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

"Multiple issues play into that 70 percent," said Terri White, director of the state agency. "Some mentally ill people don't have access. Stigma is also a part of it. The reality is, a lot of people need services and are not getting them."

Those with mental health needs are not alone. Each Oklahoman with a mental illness has parents, siblings, spouses, children, neighbors, co-workers and friends struggling along with them.

"If you have a loved one with an untreated, undiagnosed mental-health need, the whole family is affected," White said. "If you are an employer with an employee struggling with this, that will increase absenteeism and lower productivity."

It's a community issue.

Coming to grips

It was an evening 20 years ago when Steve Lyons got a frantic phone call from his son's girlfriend. The father was a longtime cop in Houston.

"She said Dustin was acting crazy, seeing things and hearing voices," he said.

On the job, Lyons had seen the worst in people. He knew his son drank, and he suspected that he smoked pot. But his son had never exhibited symptoms of mental health problems, had earned a bachelor's degree and was starting his career in restaurant management.

"It wasn't anything that a lot of college kids don't do," Lyons said. "I thought he was an alcoholic. I thought if he sobered up and stopped doing that, it would be fine. It wasn't."

In the past two decades, the father has been with his son as he went through more than 100 hospitalizations, countless evictions, frequent homelessness and now criminal convictions.

"He was a good kid," Lyons said. "He did well in high school and got a degree. He had a girlfriend and was working. By age 24, it was like he disappeared from the planet. He wasn't there anymore."

Even the tent community of homeless people by the Arkansas River kicked him out for his violent behavior.

"I love my son, but I don't like him. He's not that pleasant to be around," Lyons said. "But no matter how difficult it is for me, it's a lot worse for him. He didn't ask for this. If he had cancer, would I leave him alone? No.

"His life has been stolen from him — his chance for an incredible life taken from him."

Steve Lyons went through his own cycle. At first, there was denial, then acceptance. For a decade, he believed that his son could control the erratic behavior and continue to work.

"Finally, the realization came that he would never be able to work again. Just looking how at home it was a struggle for him to make it through the day," he said. "With everything in mental health available, there is nothing for Dustin. There is nowhere for him."

Not enough services

Community-based services were supposed to take the place of long-term care institutions, which were closed starting in the 1970s through the '90s after evidence and research found abuses and subpar treatment in institutional facilities.

Community programs have progressed in offering a variety of styles and types to meet different levels of needs, said Mike Brose, executive director of the Mental Health Association Oklahoma.

The problem is that not enough community services were developed to handle the need, Brose said.

"People in an untreated state of mental illness will have bad outcomes," he said.

Cuts in crisis beds in 2009, during the recession, made things worse, Brose said. Some hospitals and service providers have space for crisis care but no funding for services.

This has placed the burden of mental health treatment on law enforcement officers, jails and prisons. When a person in crisis is picked up, finding a bed becomes a chess game.

Where to go for help depends on a person's health insurance coverage. For the privately insured, each plan is different.

For those without insurance, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services has 14 community mental health service centers statewide. Four are in the Tulsa area. The centers will provide a free assessment and can determine whether a person qualifies for services.

"Unfortunately for some people, that's the gap," White said. "For some people, if they are not ill enough for crisis intervention, they will not have anything."

Getting the right treatment

Symptoms of schizophrenia often don't manifest themselves until a person's late teens or early 20s. This catches families off guard, as it did Lyons.

Not all mental health issues are as severe as paranoid schizophrenia. For some, it's occasionally talking with a therapist to manage depression, an eating disorder or addictions. Others may need medications to regulate anxiety disorders or attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder.

Some high-profile and tragic events have prompted the National Institute of Mental Health to focus on first-time psychiatric episodes, said Brose.

This includes getting the patient the right treatment, medication and follow-up and telling families they can help their loved ones.

"The initial results show a much-improved intervention, and evidence indicates this type of focus can return the individual to their original base," Brose said. "If you leave people in an untreated state of mental illness, it gets worse."

Oklahoma law requires hospitalizations only if people are a danger to themselves or others. It's a high bar. And co-payments, deductibles and limits on treatment can get in the way of seeking care.

Currently, Tulsa has 88 publicly funded crisis-treatment beds. About 172 beds are located elsewhere in the state, from Woodward to McAlester.

Running out of options

In the past two years, Dustin Lyons has been evicted from six residential-care facilities and five extended-stay hotels. He has been barred from all the homeless and day shelters, and a community treatment team refused him service.

"I was told the best thing to happen to Dustin would be prison," Steve Lyons said. "It made my jaw drop. I was told he would then have a roof over his head, be in a secure place and be given his medication. It would be the equivalent of a state institution, but we don't have those anymore, so we put people in jails.

"I was taken aback, but we have nothing else."

His son hears a voice in his head telling him to save people from "the black hole for all eternity" by knocking them out of it. In reality, it means he will randomly hit people on the street.

"It's my voice he hears," Steve Lyons said. "So I'll spend 30 minutes with him talking about a plan, telling him what he needs to do. He will agree, be compliant and pleasant. Then, the next 16 hours he's awake, he is hearing my voice telling him the exact opposite.

"He thinks he's doing what I'm telling him to. I just can't win."

Lyons raised his son with his second wife, who died before his son developed schizophrenia.

Lyons lived in Houston until about five years ago, when he married a Tulsa doctor. His son followed, living on and off with them. Lyons said the Oklahoma and Texas systems aren't that different.

Upon his release from jail, Dustin Lyons moved into the house his father had bought and found a roommate from his days on the streets. He receives $740 monthly from Social Security, which is controlled by his dad.

On a day when his illness was under control, he gave a glimpse of his true personality — funny, self-deprecating and sharp. Then his mind wandered.

"I love my dad to death — more than anyone in the world, but I can't make the voices go away," he said.

Steve Lyons has been meeting with the Mental Health Association to see what options are left. Recently he was cleaning out old photos and came across one of his son before his mental illness took hold. He cried.

"I look at those and see a young, handsome man full of promise," he said. "It's a reason I get so frustrated. I know what he was like before.

"When I see people like Dustin on the street, I wonder about their families. I understand how they walk away from it. I've done everything I can possibly do for him."

Families take on the role of helping loved ones with mental illness

Nancy Davis remembers her daughter as a sixth-grader confiding that she was so sad she wanted to die.

“I knew to take that seriously,” Davis said.

Her daughter, Shawn Poynor, said she would hide in the bathroom crying, not wanting her parents to know about her feelings of isolation.

“No one knew,” she said. “I would go to school and act like everything was OK. In the sixth-grade mind, it’s all about the immediate. It’s a hard time to think about the future. I remember how awful I felt and in a dark place. I didn’t understand it and didn’t know how to cope with it.”

After the revelation, Davis explained depression and took her to the pediatrician, who then referred her to a psychiatrist. Despite medication, her condition spiraled and led to a suicide attempt.

Poynor cannot pinpoint what sent her over that edge.

“It’s not rational,” she said. “Something clicked. I decided I didn’t want to cry like that anymore. I didn’t want to live like that anymore.”

Poynor, now 21, survived with the help of her family and treatment. Her disease is not one that has multiple diagnoses or requires ongoing medication. She has depression that needs to stay in check.

About 80 percent of people with a mental illness function normally in everyday life, said Mike Brose, executive director of the Mental Health Association Oklahoma.

A problem is funding programs in early intervention, covering costs for the working poor and getting treatment for the 70 percent of Oklahomans who have a mental illness not receiving care.

“Data show these illnesses are more treatable than other organ illnesses,” Brose said. “Most people with a mental illness get treatment and live just fine. It’s learning what works for you and catching it before it reaches a crisis.”

Depression is one of the more common disorders, affecting about 1 in 10 Americans. Oklahoma is among the top seven states with the highest rates of depression, according to several government and health studies.

The good news is that a variety of treatment options are available, and the vast majority of people are successful in managing their symptoms. The challenge is getting past the stigma, affording the care and gaining access to the right approach.

For most people, this is a group effort.

Poynor began medication and spent two weeks in an inpatient program, but she knew it wasn’t working.

“I decided I needed to get it together and take charge of my life,” Poynor said. “I knew this counseling wasn’t working, but my parents did want to help me. So, I was determined to take care of myself.”

Her mother described the struggle to find the correct dosage and medications.

“Medication treatment is almost as much art as science, finding the right levels and right combination and reporting back impacts,” Davis said.

Nine months later, Poynor was stable enough to be taken off medication. A doctor told Davis to “just give her a normal childhood from then on.”

During her sophomore year of high school, the family moved from the Chicago area to Tulsa to be near one of her brothers who began working at the Mental Health Association.

Poynor started working for the agency while in high school. She helped start a Safe Teen suicide prevention program at her school and organized a youth listening conference in the city. She even won a national award from Mental Health America for her work.

“That gave me my voice, my passion and something to care about,” she said. “I felt able to help other students who are struggling to know they have a purpose. Every struggle is different and every person’s view of their struggle is different. For me, finding my passion gave me a purpose.”

After high school, Poynor attended Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, where she met her husband. The couple now live in Tulsa, and Poynor plans to finish her degree in zoology. She is currently working at Up for Trees.

Poynor, 21, has learned ways to live with depression. She takes walks to clear her mind, stays physically active and makes no rash decisions. She is not on medication, although she has been in the past during an emotional crisis.

She said it took eight years to finally feel in control of her well-being.

“People should not expect the healing process to last in months but in years and years of hard work,” she said. “You have to make sure it’s a good treatment and finding the right fit.”

Peers, positivity keep a man's mental health in a good place

It’s common to see a guitar slung around William Fosterr as he winds his way around Denver House.

He knows everyone’s name, asks how they are doing and knows how to give them food, clothing and a good attitude. An uplifting song often helps.

The 64-year-old was among the first to enter a housing program in Tulsa run by the Mental Health Association Oklahoma. That was in 1993. He’s still there, as a client and as an employee.

“William is the beating heart of Denver House,” said Program Director Max Parker. “He brings heart and soul into the program. He helps carry positivity and acceptance of everything. He has a connection with people. He gives that to them and promotes better moods and healthier living.”

Fosterr is a recovery support specialist at Denver House, which is a drop-in center for adults at 252 W. 17th Place. It started in 2010 for people experiencing mental health difficulties or homelessness. It is peer run, meaning everyone working there has dealt with mental-health issues.

He takes care of different aspects of the center, including the clothing pantry and support groups.

Two decades ago, he was a rambler before he landed in Tulsa. He started out living at the former downtown YMCA then became homeless — a byproduct of his schizophrenia.

The Mental Health Association’s housing program provided shelter, a job and a support system. He has required some inpatient treatments on occasion, but he has never returned to the streets. His job has given him a way to help others.

“What I do is the best type of service,” Fosterr said. “Love is a risk, and we are taking a risk on these people. I initiate relationships with love. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I want them to see me serving them.”

A Texas native, he was studying for the priesthood when symptoms of his disease manifested in his early 20s. This was also the late 1960s, so it was normal to hit the road in search of peace, love and understanding. Fosterr held these values as he crossed the country, slipping in and out of homelessness.

The music of the decade is evident in his folk music, which are original songs promoting acceptance, love and compassion.

When he came to Tulsa, he said the city sang to him, and he stayed. His disease has required many hospitalizations through the years.

Fosterr now has an assertive community treatment team checking in with him regularly, and his peers also help him maintain his mental health.

“He is a unique and great person who has had his struggles and continues with it,” Parker said. “But, he deals with it with grace.”

He works about 20 hours a week and communicates with Parker about what he needs to stay mentally healthy.

“He has maintained his mental health pretty well,” Parker said. “I give him freedom, and he spreads his wings here. I make sure he is transparent with me about his mental health needs at all times. Here, he is serving people. He is helping the homeless learn to take control, recovery and be positive.He draws energy around him.”

At most events to benefit mental health programs, Fosterr is often asked to perform. His message is consistent — stay away from negative thoughts and find common ground to love each other.

“The takeaway from my attack on the adversarial system is that we can all advance together without anyone having to lose or suffer,” Fosterr said. “That is the truth.”

Connally Perry: Homelessness can happen to anyone

A veteran should never be homeless. But I know all too well that veterans, especially those impacted by mental illness and substance abuse, end up on the streets … just like I did.

What does it feel like to be homeless? It’s scary. I’ve dealt with some pretty heavy stuff in my life, especially during my time in the service, but I’ll tell you that I’ve never had a feeling as helpless as when I knew I was going to be sleeping on the streets. It’s not even the idea that you’re sleeping in a place without a locked door. It’s a real lost feeling.

I found a new life helping veterans, and other Oklahomans experiencing mental illness and homelessness, find a safe place to live in Mental Health Association Oklahoma’s housing and recovery programs. Once a person has an apartment, we connect them with the recovery supports they need to rebuild their lives.

To get to this point in my own recovery, I first had to survive my years in the Army, plus my 2½ years of homelessness and two decades of addiction.

I grew up in Ponca City, the son of a car salesman and a wedding planner. Two months after I turned 18, I volunteered to join the Army, where I served during the Vietnam conflict.

When I got out of the Army in 1971, all I had in the world was a green Army duffle bag full of all the clothes I owned. I struggled with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, and a serious substance abuse problem. I tried to get sober on my own, because when you’re in the Army, it’s beat into your head that you can overcome any problem. It’s hard to admit you need help.

Despite my efforts to stay sober, I relapsed and ended up divorced and living in my truck in Arkansas in 1983. I’ve been through a lot in my life, but being homeless was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. I was shot. I was stabbed. I was lost. I remember thinking that I had survived my time in the service, but I didn’t know if I would live through homelessness.

In 1995, after my second divorce, I wanted to see my son, but I was really ashamed of being homeless for the second time. I was on the streets for almost a year, and when I would go pick him up at his mom’s house, I would go to a service station and wash up and try to look the best I could. He never knew I was homeless.

In 1999, I finally got off the streets for the third and final time. That’s when I got a job with Mental Health Association Oklahoma helping other people going through the same things I had to overcome. But it wasn’t until 2003, when friends convinced me it was time to seek treatment for my out-of-control substance abuse problem, that I had a moment of clarity that led to my recovery. I was in treatment two days later. I am proud to say that I have been sober for 11 years now.

A few years ago, I was approached by Mental Health Association Oklahoma to participate in its campaign to end homelessness, BetterBox Project.

Since my BetterBox Project video was released on betterboxproject.com, and through social media, my old friends have called to say, “How did this happen? I can’t believe this. You don’t look like someone who would ever be homeless.” I always tell them, “I didn’t ever think I would be homeless, either.

“It can happen to anyone.”

Take advantage of these
exclusive benefits:

Hitting Home: Homelessness and mental health in Tulsa

Starting Thursday: A Tulsa World special report about mental health

Mike Strain: Homeless family with baby, 5-year-old hopes for better future

How to get help

One in five Oklahoma adults suffer from mental illness

How to get help

Michael Brose: Crisis, tension and opportunity in our downtown

Resources often scarce to treat children with mental illnesses

Barriers to treatment

Identifying struggling kids

How to get help

Tulsa mom recounts 'draining' experience raising two kids with mental disorders

Gail Lapidus: Speak up for children's mental health

Official: Tulsa Jail has become 'state's largest mental health facility'

How to get help

Mentally ill in the Tulsa jail

Stanley Glanz: Why are we jailing the mentally ill?

Tulsa's homeless: Struggling with mental illness, many count on downtown services to get through

‘Not a troublemaker’

From homeless to givers

Tulsa’s homeless: How to get (and give) help

Hitting Home: Stories of struggle ... finding a way home

Amber Darden: A young mother

Milton Sheppard: Navigating life’s obstacles

Tulsa World Editorial: Mental health and homelessness hit home

What to do when someone approaches you panhandling

The Rev. Stephen L. McKee: Seeing the homeless as God's gift

Thomas Baker: The impact of the homeless on downtown

Father walks with son through a life of mental illness

Families take on the role of helping loved ones with mental illness

Peers, positivity keep a man's mental health in a good place

Connally Perry: Homelessness can happen to anyone

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Breaking News

News Alert

Take advantage of these exclusive benefits:

Starting Thursday: A Tulsa World special report about mental health

Mike Strain: Homeless family with baby, 5-year-old hopes for better future

How to get help

One in five Oklahoma adults suffer from mental illness

How to get help

Michael Brose: Crisis, tension and opportunity in our downtown

Resources often scarce to treat children with mental illnesses

Barriers to treatment

Identifying struggling kids

How to get help

Tulsa mom recounts 'draining' experience raising two kids with mental disorders

Gail Lapidus: Speak up for children's mental health

Official: Tulsa Jail has become 'state's largest mental health facility'

How to get help

Mentally ill in the Tulsa jail

Stanley Glanz: Why are we jailing the mentally ill?

Tulsa's homeless: Struggling with mental illness, many count on downtown services to get through

‘Not a troublemaker’

From homeless to givers

Tulsa’s homeless: How to get (and give) help

Hitting Home: Stories of struggle ... finding a way home

Amber Darden: A young mother

Milton Sheppard: Navigating life’s obstacles

Tulsa World Editorial: Mental health and homelessness hit home

What to do when someone approaches you panhandling

The Rev. Stephen L. McKee: Seeing the homeless as God's gift

Thomas Baker: The impact of the homeless on downtown

Father walks with son through a life of mental illness

Families take on the role of helping loved ones with mental illness

Peers, positivity keep a man's mental health in a good place

Connally Perry: Homelessness can happen to anyone

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