Progress on Paranoid Guy

Since I last wrote about Paranoid Guy, he's shown some improvement. He no longer tells me that I hear voices, but still always mentions, whenever he sees me, that he hears voices. Once that was cleared up, I urged him to seek psychiatric help at some place that would be free or low-cost, since it looks like he may be homeless. But he told me that he couldn't because he's an undocumented immigrant. (He speaks with what I take to be a Russian accent.)

So I mentioned him to someone I know who's involved with GALAEI, who told me Puentes de Salud won't deny him service for being undocumented; that's largely the population they serve. But Paranoid Guy still insisted they'd require a Social Security number. After Ulises assured me they wouldn't, and PG still resisted, I finally made time last Monday to visit them and ask if they could give me something in writing that I could show him. They had no statement about this, but they gave me a card and wrote in the hours they could see him.

Last night, when I encountered PG at the central library, I gave him the card, repeating what they'd told me. He was still talking over me with his conviction that he can't get help, and I worry he's too "out of it" to act on the information I've given him. Still, I think I've done everything possible. I did, right after getting the card, make a sheetful of copies of it so that, if PG fails to act on it the first time, I can give it to him again.