The Characters of Laredo
After a few days in Laredo, I asked Sidney, "How many people in the shelter do you think suffer from mental illness?" He answered immediately: 80-90%. I originally thought my book project would be framed around our country's lack of properly treating and taking care of those with mental illnesses because I assumed Sidney was somewhere on the low end of the autism spectrum disorder scale, but he's never been diagnosed, and I'm no doctor. Sometime last year, he did undergo a county psychiatric examination, and they concluded the obvious: he doesn't suffer from schizophrenia or any other psychosis. Ironically, they gave him a month of free rent in the Hotel Bender, an extremely run-down building filled with what he called "all sorts of low people." The Hotel Bender. As we moved through the town, sat in plazas, and ate in the shelters, Sidney pointed out local homeless characters and their nicknames, claiming some have severe mental illnesses ...