This is a picture of Allison Brito. In this pictue she is trying to tell her story about her life and how rough the homeless life is. It was not even her fault that she became homeless. The rest of the story is below.
16% of the homeless population suffer from mental illness. Sometimes they are released from the mental institution and are not able to find housing or treatments with the amount of money that they have. Not all of the mentallyill people need to be institutionalized, they are able to live in the community like any other person because the illness is not that severe. But living in the commmunity is a tough thing even for peopel that are not mentally ill. They do not have enough money to keep theirseves lving in the community so they become homeless. Its a very sad thing.This is an artice of a woman that suffers from a mentally ill desease, and is homeless.Allison Brito is a 43 year old woman who suffers from being mentally ill. She lives in New York, and even works at a jewlry story in Macy's. She lives at a bed in a shelter(Rehrman).
Ten years ago, Ms. Brito worked as an office manager. She lived with her husband and their two boys in Brooklyn and was training to become a minister at her church.Fasting, as part of her religious training, sent her to the hospital for the first time.Ms. Brito stopped eating, stopped sleeping and lost her sense of reason. She does not blame her church, but says the initial fasting seemed to cause the onset of her illness. She explained how it seemed at the time: “I have no sense of what to do next. I just stay in a still mode and practically do nothing.” (Rehman)Emergency medical workers have had to pick her up at least six times since then, she said.In April 2007, Ms. Brito was hospitalized again, for what she hopes is the last time. She received a new diagnosis of major depression, and was given new medication that is working, she said.If her mental health stabilizes, Ms. Brito may be able to recover some of the life that she has lost.(Rehman)She was divorced in 2003. At first, she had custody of her children, but after she was briefly hospitalized at the end of 2004, her ex-husband took custody. She began paying $750 a month in child support, moving into ever-smaller apartments to afford the payments on her $19.50 hourly wage.(Rehman)She had kept her office manager position for about 15 years, until the hospitalization in April, when she was let go, she said.Ms. Brito was hired at Macy’s for part-time seasonal work over the holidays, although her manager is keeping her on in the new year. She works part time, at $7.50 an hour, and for now earns about $280 a month, including some unemployment benefits, and pays $25 a month in child support.“When I’m at work, I focus on work, and it’s easy that way,” she said. But she wishes she could take that feeling back to the shelter with her. “It’s hard when I walk through the door, because I need to do the coat check and the bag check and sign in like everybody else. Come in and take my meds, just like everybody else.”She sleeps in a dormitory with nine other women. Lights are out after 11, and she hangs her suit back in her locker quietly.The center is run by the Brooklyn Bereu of Community Service , one of seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, and $150 from the fund was used to buy professional clothing for Ms. Brito: two pantsuits, two skirts and two jackets. Ms. Brito is eager to find full-time work.“Work is important to me,” she said.Mostly, she hopes that a full-time job, along with rental assistance, which Transitional Living Community is helping her apply for, might make a two-bedroom apartment possible. That would give her the chance to have her younger son back before he becomes an adult. Her older son turned 18 in December, and the younger is 14.He asks, “Mommy, when are we getting our own apartment?’ Ms. Brito said. “When he says ‘our,’ it makes me feel bad because he’s so hopeful, and he keeps my faith up a lot.” (Rehman)
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