Mike hears voices inside his head and sees things that are not there. Frightening things, like snakes and abandoned babies. Sometimes, when the hallucinations become too vivid, Mike erupts in hostile words and angry gestures that frighten other people. Twenty-five years ago, Mike would probably have been locked away in a state mental hospital in some secluded locale. Today, however, he lives on a bench in Manhattan's Central Park.
Mike and thousands like him are stark evidence of America's brutal indifference to the mentally ill. The care meted out to the severely disturbed is a "disaster by any measure used," concludes...
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