- Home
- News Grid
- Local News
- Green Hawk
- Business
- Politics
- School Zone
- Nonprofits
- Missing Pets
- Multimedia
- Arts
- Movies
- Outdoors
- Sports
- News Releases
- Columnists
- Blogs
- Opinions
- Classifieds
- Advertise
- Donate
- Partners
Ken Williams: The Story of Diana
A friend of mine sent me a poem. She wrote it while sitting on a park bench watching pigeons and the homeless. She saw how the birds were fed yet free — no expectations abound, no moral judgments were to be found. The homeless also were on full display to all. Unlike the pigeons, there was plenty of judgment directed at them, for the homeless are always viewed through a prism that tells more about the observer than the observed. For some reason, her poem brought “Diana” to mind.
Diana is an older homeless woman in Santa Barbara who has managed to survive our — at times — cruel and inhumane streets, regardless or perhaps because of her severe mental illness.
Every morning I see her crawl out from her improvised shelter close to State Street. She dresses in layers of loud, colorful clothes. Looking at her this morning and thinking of the poem, I realize that not only is she a walking, living testament to the failure of our mental health system across the land, but equally as important, a living example of our spiritual values.
You see, she has no income, and her mental illness is too rich in delusions of wealth, of hidden bank accounts, monstrous houses and rented villas in the hills to enable her to accept my offers of shelter and help to apply for SSI. But survive she does.
At times I run across her as she carries her cache of calorie-rich donuts and other junk food that does so much harm to her body. I come upon her as she digs through her 3-foot-deep restaurant that for the rest of us passes as garbage cans. The homeless call it “dumpster diving.”
But Diana also has a legion of strangers who look out for her welfare — dozens of silent saints who give her clothes, food and money. She has a cadre of spiritual friends that goes beyond the usual moans and groans about the tattered social safety net that we all know is dysfunctional.
Instead of hanging their heads low and passing the blame on to others, they give her love with no conditions attached. Out of nowhere she wears new clothes, a sweater to hold off the cold or a jacket to ward off winter rains. At other times she holds plates of salad and nutritionally rich sandwiches. These good citizens, our neighbors, don’t participate in the countless strategy sessions that project reams of plans, both for good and bad. They simply listen to their inner conscience and act accordingly. Their prism is one of spiritual beliefs that we are one. Rich and poor, young and old, healthy and disabled — that our spiritual values are to be lived and not merely listened to once a week.
These kind people find it impossible to walk by her and leave it to others to lend a helping hand — to professionals who know all too well the severe shortcomings and lack of resources of the government. When they pass Diana, they pass a friend, knowing she is probably someone’s mother, daughter or wife.
A few months back, I began to get a constant stream of calls when Diana had injured herself and was too far into her mental illness to seek help for a hellacious wound that became infected. It literally took me weeks to persuade her to let me and Dr. Lynne Jahnke clean and dress the wounds. It was one of the worst infections I had ever run across, one that made me seriously question if we could save her life, let alone her leg.
Weekly, for six months, Dr. Jahnke and I would hunt Diana down, clean the wound, apply bandages and antibiotics, and share our concern. The calls continued to come from concerned business owners and citizens with a spiritual compass that guided them to care. For them, Diana wasn’t a performing pigeon, nor an eyesore nor threat. Maybe she was simply a woman who God had sent to Earth to allow us to grow into or out of our spiritual lives.
Words fail me in my gratitude to the kind citizens who have given so much to one so humbled by life’s circumstances. You are the Santa Barbara that in your quiet way moves beyond rhetoric and false values. Diana can’t thank you, so let me do so in my humble ways. Your moral blessing has helped this poor woman, and in the end, all of us. You make our community strong and special in these troubled times. Nothing can take that from you, her nor the rest of us.
Yours is the priceless gift without monetary value, one that is immeasurable. Thank you.
Postscript
Listening to the radio, my favorite singer, Martina McBride, brought me this same lesson of life as she sang God’s Will. It’s a simple song that tells us how the disabled often have more to offer us than we do them. Her song and this story come from the same place of the heart.
Shelter, a documentary about homelessness in Santa Barbara featuring Ken Williams, will premier at 7 p.m. Friday at the Veterans Memorial Building. Click here to reserve tickets.
— Ken Williams has been a social worker for the homeless for the last 30 years. He is the author of China White and Shattered Dreams, A Story of the Streets.
Comments
Noozhawk's comments are moderated, but by posting here you accept your responsibility to follow our rules as part of Noozhawk's shared online community. Please keep your comments civil and helpful. Don't attack other readers personally, and do not use vulgar, abusive or discriminatory language. Use the "Report Abuse" link if a comment violates these standards or our Terms of Use.
» on 07.23.09 @ 08:21 AM
You can thank the ACLU for dumping these people on the streets. There was a time when people with severe mental illness were housed in an institution where they were cared for, kept clean and fed healthy food. Maybe the ACLU thought that living in a cardboard tent and dumpster diving was an improvement.
You don't have permission to flag this entry.
» on 07.23.09 @ 11:39 AM
I believe it was Bush father who put all the non- dangerous mental patients out on the streets on 1991-92.
However, thank you Ken for your possitive views of all of us in Santa Barbara, I too believe that we are good. Blessings to you and Diana and all those who work to help the ones in need.
mdec
You don't have permission to flag this entry.
» on 07.23.09 @ 10:17 PM
It is my recollection that the beloved Ronnie Reagan closed the Camarillo Mental Hospital back in the 70’s as part of his inimitable style of economics.
You don't have permission to flag this entry.
» on 07.24.09 @ 05:58 AM
Reagan closed Camarillo. When it comes to cutting back our leaders tell us to “pull in our belts” without pausing to think of those who have no belt to pull in . It is always the elderly, the frail, the vulnerable and the helpless who slip between the cracks. Does the president even know how many homeless families are camping in tent communities and abandoned buildings all over this country? There are men women and children scrambling here to survive and to retain their dignity and the government appears more concerned about it’s image abroad by sending billions in aid to foreign countries. Has anyone told the president about the plight of thousands of his own people, the homeless and jobless who have already lost everything? Charity begins at home.
You don't have permission to flag this entry.
» on 07.24.09 @ 08:57 AM
I am at least encouraged that some observers are begining to distinguish between those who are chronic “street people” or “transients” by personal choice and those who are living on the streets because of varying degrees of mental disorder not necessarily a result of a choice in lifestyle like some others who are also categorized as being “homeless”.
It was a number of politicians on both sides of the aisle that were faced with astronomical medical/psychiatric and facilities expenses, incurred to care for all manner of “mentally ill” persons, that were pressured by economics to turn out people with mental disorders which were determined (usually by some bureaucrat) to not pose any danger to themselves or to others.
Ironically the left wing or so called liberal champions for personal freedom often launched legal attacks on the system in California that provided various methods of involuntary incarceration or “commitments” of persons who were thought or proven to be a danger to themelves or to others. Processes and criteria that existed and were established by the California Welfare and Institutions Code.
It is difficult to understand the philosophy of the liberal legal legions, who would challenge involuntary commitments. Commitments made of those people who, very often, were obviously unable to care for themselves safely, and to challenge cases on the basis that the process was “unjust”, only to win these court cases, which then, ultimately, resulted in these folks being turned out onto the streets.
These same champions of justice now complain, as Mr. Williams often does in his poignant prose, that they should not have been turned out by the system after all because they cannot safely care for themselves on the streets and therefore the system has “failed them”!
You don't have permission to flag this entry.
» on 08.13.09 @ 12:25 PM
I was writing aganist the shelter because Jim was protesting the place..And I have heard and seen things through the years that made my stomach turn..I am still angry about the death of Ross for one he looked like my favorite country singer Randy Travis, he was a good hearted man and didn’t deserve to die like that…I remember back several years when an older woman probably in her 80’s was out on the street in the neighborhood in a wheelchair she had to be in her 80’s..She belonged in a nursing home still C E refused to take her for some reason??? Maybe because she belonged in a nursing home, I don’t know..I agree with you now I think we should all work together and not apart. So if you would like to contact me for any reason you know where I am..I cannot more to quickly as I injured my back, if not do you want to be the “Hatfields or McCoys?” Another great article by you for us…Someday I’d like to read your books..Roger
You don't have permission to flag this entry.
More Local News »
Ken Williams: Does Death Ever Tire of Taking Santa Barbara’s Homeless?
There's hardly time to grieve one loss before news of the next comes along
Ken Williams: Fighting ‘The Other’ Overseas Only to Become The Other at Home
Suspected Orange County serial killings of homeless exposes a bitter truth about war and its consequences
Ken Williams: Decrease in Homeless Deaths a Community Effort
The dead deserve justice, and two recent deaths specifically merit further scrutiny
Ken Williams: Life-Threatening Weather Conditions Take Toll on Homeless
It's imperative that police provide help and be in the loop on warming centers
Ken Williams: Tough Questions Go Unanswered After Tragic Death
Potential crime scene is cleaned up without any effort to determine what happened to a defenseless homeless woman
Weather: Fair 55.0º
Search Noozhawk »
