8 GROUNDCOVER NEWS MENTAL HEALTH The homeless carousel has a pricey ticket MARKONA LOVE Groundcover vendor No. 590 I’m sure that I miss my Ann Arborites more than they missed me. Maybe we could change that with a return to the page, with me writing about my new homeless adventures, re-starting our conversation. I bragged and boasted about the greatest little city on Earth as well as the most incredible homeless population … SHBs (Special Human Beings). Just a reminder about who Ann Arbor’s SHBs are: newspaper vendors, community volunteers and humanitarians lifting Ann Arbor from the bottom up. I am proud to say I was one. Ann Arbor was and always will be my home. I was born in Ann Arbor, lived in Scio, then Barton Hills, where my father was Man of the Year in Ann Arbor and in the Hall of Champions at Barton Hills Golf Club. Now I have taken my stories to the hard, conservative Boise, Idaho, … where being homeless is literally a crime. There are others in Boise who wish me to help start a street newspaper here. I came to Boise to visit my oldest son Anthony Martin (28) and my oldest daughter Asia Llana (30). Both spent a couple rounds in the pen, now out and trying to put their lives together — God willing. This is a whole other fight. I’m learning as I’m trying to teach. Father to son and daughter still with the stereotypical story, “Who knows best?” Through time and experience I have seen a hidden struggle of homeless people in Boise. SHBs here are in a mental health crisis in which they have been forced to choose between abusive, private behavioral health institutions or prison. I am now in the former and am witnessing these terrifying, heartbreaking stories of law-abiding, intelligent human beings being used to fuel a private and state mental industry to extract money from the federal government. This sickens me. I am in solidarity with our brothers and sisters, while the ACLU has filed their second federal lawsuit. I beg of our nation to step up their awareness, realize that this is a frontline to a national battle and please support and enlist in this national health crisis that has become a civil war. Are we all waiting for someone to be physically standing on our doormats? The Beatles said “HELP!” Why aren’t we? Why are we selling out our nation’s soul? Come on! Where is the love? Have we really emptied our hearts? Will we let the machine pound us all into a fine dust until we just finally blow away in a heated gust? Time to water the crops, not just the garden. Uncle Sam has forsaken its people; so enlist in our people’s revolution for our wellbeing. Why do we wait for this fight to endanger the next generation? “Love one another.” Please pay attention to how much profit is being made by private institutions to incarcerate citizens into a carousel that circulates homeless people from prisons to mental health facilities and back to the street … hoping to survive the ride. This horrifying carousel ride is making huge profits while suckling at society's very marrow — driving us into a final disrepair. One of these private behavioral health institutions is charging $3,000 per night, per person, to Medicare or Medicaid. These charges are paid with no therapy to the patients. I have witnessed this directly. I left one world to find another … left me pondering which one I truly belonged … one born, one loved. One step from beyond the abyss. We need a new world. All my Love in Solidarity to our special human beings. Please send comments or feedback to lovemarkona39@gmail.com APRIL 19, 2024
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