Out of all the people that are presently at the Salvation Army, there are "29 schizophrenics out of the 100 or so,” says Stuart Mitchell from the Salvation Army in Windsor.

Mitchell is a special projects supervisor and chaplain of Windsor’s Salvation Army community and rehabilitation center, and he has seen people fighting to survive every day.

Thuy Chu is one such example. Chu came from Vietnam more than half a decade ago, and his first experiences were very rough. He saw Canada as the land of opportunity, “where everything is free,” he says, but in actuality he spent most of his days in and out of the Salvation Army because he couldn’t deal with the diversity of problems he encountered there.

Chu came to Windsor looking for a hope and then ended up without help. “If nobody would stand beside me, I would have to stand up for myself,” says Chu.

A physically and mentally fit person such as Chu finds life on the street a battle in which there are not many choices.

“I was desperate for anything,” says Chu. “I was crying a lot because I felt so alone. I didn’t have any money, not even a penny in my pocket to buy some food.”

These choices slowly disappear for anyone who battles with schizophrenia or substance abuse.

Chu saw his share of alcoholics and drug-abusers during his stay and he could only imagine what it would have been like if he was mentally impaired.

“Some people shouldn’t be out,” says Mitchell, “they need care.”

The only solution the government has come up with so far is welfare. Mitchell is one of the witnesses that have seen that “welfare is not the answer to homelessness.”

As Mitchell described, sponsored programs with supervision geared to group problems had been one of the many solutions he has seen working.

Mitchell says last year around 73 participants out of 255 received jobs after being initiated in a work program. He continued to say that the step by step program for welfare in the last decade has made motivation a little higher.

Mitchell described welfare for many, as a factor that only furthers laziness and a downward spiral of depression.

According to the Schizophrenia Society, almost 40 percent of schizophrenics attempt suicide, and 10 percent of them complete the attempt.

Although welfare can be one step to help single mothers survive through school or a low paying job - “how do you live on minimum wage,” says Mitchell - welfare has been shown in many cases to further laziness.

“If we start making it difficult for them, people will make an effort to do something,” says Mitchell.

There isn’t one cure for homelessness. The efforts of many hostels, like the Salvation Army in Windsor, may seem hopeless at times as there are such varying degrees of homeless that walk through their doors.

“We have arsonists, child molesters, addicts, alcoholics,” says Mitchell.

There are so many different groups of homeless that need different forms of care and support but “the government won’t pay for those places,” says Mitchell. “That’s a utopia,” and even the government chooses to ignore them.

Almost all schizophrenics on the street in Ontario do not even know they have an illness. Mitchell comments that “St. Thomas and London psychiatric are filled with them because the government doesn’t know where to put them. They need help.”

At Covenant House in Toronto, they are “seeing an increase in young people displaying mental illness,” commented Michelle Clausius, who is the communications/media coordinator.

In Toronto 30 to 35 percent of homeless are schizophrenic.

According to the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario, for a man a schizophrenic episode usually happens unknowingly at around 18. And it usually goes unnoticed for years well into his career. For a woman this usually happens at the age of 24, when she is on her way to building the rest of her future.

“The onset of schizophrenia in the early adulthood years usually leads to disruptions in an individual's education. Individuals with schizophrenia often find it difficult to maintain employment for a sustained period of time,” says a Statistics Canada report on the subject.

It continues to say, that “although some individuals have healthy relationships, the majority with schizophrenia (60% to 70%) do not marry, and most have limited social contacts. As a result, individuals with schizophrenia are greatly over-represented in prison and homeless populations.”

Within Ontario’s jail population of 8,000, fifteen to 20% have some form of mental illness. From that, a third have serious illnesses such as schizophrenia. The wait for mentally ill inmates to obtain admission into a psychiatric facility is 1 1/2 times longer than it was 5 years ago.

Schizophrenia starts undetected. Almost all don’t realize they have it until he or she suffers their first schizophrenic or psychotic episode. This happens to one in every 100 people in Canada.

“I have seen men here that have lost it all. One gentleman here used to co-own a corporation and some others were high executives of some wealthy firms.”

Since some schizophrenics live alone, they might have a psychotic episode without even knowing it. Each episode is toxic to the brain, causing brain damage every time it happens. So these people are now on a path where they may be unable to take care of themselves.

Ontario lacks places for homeless schizophrenics - to keep them off the street and into the hands that can give them the medication and observation they need. “The jails are filled with them,” adds Mitchell.

According to the Schizophrenia Society, the lack of support from institutions meant to protect the homeless results in half of the schizophrenics on the street abusing alcohol and drugs.

The Salvation Army has had problems in the past during thunderstorms or when the power may go out, Mitchell says it has been hard to get them to understand what is going on.

“Every time the power goes out, our mentally ill patients go crazy with paranoia and it takes a while to control them,” comments Mitchell.

For many other street people, this can be a frightening situation. “As a homeless man, I am overjoyed at the prospects of being permanently warehoused in a place where they sleep 120 - 150 in a room,” sarcastically remarks Ron Meek, who was once homeless.

Jails have been and are still being filled with the mentally-ill and substance abusers from the street. “We should show more compassion to these people because they had normal lives once, and one day they lost it all,” says Mitchell, but “the government doesn’t know where to put them.”

Simple changes in everyday life like a light bulb burning out or the sight of jet fighters bombing a city on the news can trigger these psychotic episodes. In cramped institutions like a hostel, hospital, or jail cell, the chances of this happening heighten.

“If there’s one on the street that shouldn’t be, we haven’t solved the problem,” says Mitchell with a sigh.