Homeless in Montana
“Your violin has only two strings,” I say. “You’re missing the other two.”
It is here that the unlikely friendship begins between Mr. Lopez and Mr. Ayers. We hope you are enjoying The Soloist. We also trust that your previous discussions exploring the topics of joblessness, homelessness, and mental illness will continue and that your research will become more defined leading into the Town Hall Meeting on April 1st.
The Town Hall Meeting will allow you to discuss these and other related issues with your peers and MSU faulty and community members. Additionally, The Soloist’s inspiring story has been selected for the 2009 Freshman Summer Reading, and Steve Lopez will be MSU’s Fall 2009 Convocation speaker. Furthermore, the story of Nathaniel Ayers and Steve Lopez will be released as a movie on April 24th. To meet Mr. Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, click the link below:
“People with untreated psychiatric illnesses comprise one-third, or between 150,000 and 200,000 people, of the estimated 744,000 homeless population.” (www.psychlaws.org) People see these sick, homeless people and either think: “It’s sad that they have to end up on the streets,” or just look the other way and say that it is how it will be. Numerous mentally ill patients never totally realize that there is ever anything wrong with them. They go about day to day thinking that they are completely normal. Subconsciously they might know that something is not functioning correctly. They often perceive others around them as the ones who are not properly functioning. In “The Soloist,” Nathaniel shows this same tendency when Steve leaves the paperwork for Nathaniel’s sister to attend court and take over his financial responsibilities. Nathaniel is really close to Steve and would never want to hurt him, but when he reads in those papers that he is schizophrenic, he completely freaks out. Nathaniel starts yelling at Steve saying that he is not schizophrenic and that Steve should just leave him alone. Mentally ill people may recover a little bit, and with the help of drugs and medication may function somewhat normally. One may give off the appearance of being normal, but they will never fully be cured of their disease.