Oregon only has one public hospital to serve the mentally ill but it's actually a good thing. The mentally ill who aren't in jail or homeless live in the community.

There is a 14 bed residential clinic for schizophrenics right near the shop. Two of the residents are regulars, they are both pretty far out depending on the day but they like to come in, get a coffee and socialize. I give them a generous discount, they live in about $5 a day. About half of them are occasional customers. They are sometimes disruptive. Every once in a while they bring a group of them over for coffee. They all get their coffees and each sits at a different table facing in the same direction. They all look slightly to extremely bizarre. People come in and there are all these weirdos facing in the same direction staring in space, its a weird scene. The scariest looking guy, who is actually a pretty nice fellow, had a real bad day yesterday. He came in the shop several times saying slightly incoherent challenging things, it was a little disturbing, but I like him and hope he gets back in his feet. Another guy who lives in an alternate reality if you get to know him. He comes in all the time for coffee or a cookie. Many of the regulars have got to know him and take a minute to say hello to him.

A few people have been banned for being a pain in my ass. A few of them have violent criminal records but they don't seem to be a threat in their current situation. Stable housing and monetering seem to help them live reasonably decent lives (if being institutionalized for life is any way to live).

One of my favorite of these guys who lived in a different group home a few blocks away died last week. I had been dropping an occasional cup of coffee off at his home for a week or two and then he quit answering his door. He was old and had become too sick to come to the shop. Didn't know if he was hospitalized or dead until I ran into his caseworker... Cya Craig, you were a nice guy.

It seems like a good thing that these folks are part of the community, doing things other than rotting in a mental prison, glued to the TV. Some of them are inconvenient, others are sweet and decent despite the fact that their brains impose a life of fear and uncertainty on them. It can costs less to give them a place to live and and appropriate level of care when compared to jail the streets and the emergency room. That shouldn't be the reason that they be cared for with some degree of decency by it's a compelling reason. It's visibility without the misery. People in the business tell me about the dysfunctions of the system but it's not an easy community to serve and bureaucracy has trouble with the nuance of the people it's trying to help.