On any given day, the homeless mentally ill wander Jacksonville's downtown streets, many rambling to themselves or to anyone who will listen.
They can be fueled by alcohol, drugs and fear, often attracting attention.
And the police.
Many end up in a Duval County jail cell, arrested on public nuisance or other charges.
They're booked, fed a meal and released on time served, or the charges are dropped altogether.
It's a pattern Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Jail Director Tara Wildes hopes to break by placing trained Supplemental Security Income processors at the jail.
The program Wildes champions is called SOAR - Supplemental Security Income/Social Security Disability Insurance, Outreach, Access and Recovery - to increase the success rate of getting people community services.
Kristin Lupfer is the national project director for SOAR technical assistance. She said without a SOAR processor a homeless person's application has about a 10 percent to 15 percent chance to be accepted the first time it is submitted. The form requires detailed medical records and a factual bias behind the person's disability that can take up to 40 hours to gather the required records.
With SOAR, the odds jump to a 65 percent success rate for first- time SSI/SSDI applications. Some programs have success rates in the high 80s, she said.
Wildes said she became aware of the SOAR program a few years ago but didn't grasp the impact it could have until a tour of Miami's mental health facilities last year.
Lupfer called the Miami jail SOAR program a star of the national initiative with a successful application rate in the 80s.
Wildes is asking the Legislature for about $100,000 to hire four SOAR processors, but at minimum she said she needs two.
State Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, said Clay and Nassau jails are also asking the Legislature to fund the program for their jails. Adkins said she's reviewing the appropriations request. State Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, also indicated interest in finding money for the program, Wildes said.
She said the program can help people like Ceasar Jones.
The 45-year-old man stood outside the 7-Eleven in downtown Tuesday morning waving his arms erratically at nothing. His shoes lacked laces and his hands were covered in toothpaste for what he reasoned was sanitary purposes.
Disconnected words spill from his mouth. He claims to own Maxwell House and says he was drafted into the Army in 1984, even though the draft ended well before that.
Since 1983, court records show Jones has been arrested at least 80 times in Jacksonville. In the last 10 years, the more violent charges disappear and crimes typically associated with homelessness and mental illness fill his booking sheets.
Jones doesn't believe he has a mental disorder and said he did get Social Security but lost it after being jailed.
That's by design as a national law requires jails to notify the Social Security Administration when someone receiving benefits has been jailed for 30 days. Social Security pays the city a bounty of about $450 per person.
Wildes said she waits until required by law to report incarcerated Social Security recipients even though it brings anywhere from $11,000 to about $20,000 a month into the city's general fund. That money represents about 25 to 45 inmates.
The monetary benefit doesn't outweigh the cost; once a mentally disabled person has benefits suspended, he or she often doesn't have the function to connect to services again, she said.
Once Social Security insurance is suspended for incarceration, a recipient must take jail discharge papers to either an office on the Northside on Dunn Avenue or one on the Southside near Butler Boulevard and Philips Highway. It's about a 15-minute car ride from the jail, but almost surely out of reach for someone like Jones, said Brian Snow, Sulzbacher Center shelter services administrator.
Snow said Sulzbacher has four employees trained by the SOAR program, but they wear many hats and have a full load as case managers for the mentally ill.
The program works well and the homeless shelter could use at least three or four full-time SOAR trained processors, he said.
Snow estimates the majority of the homeless who live at the shelter do not receive SSI but could. The effects of four walls and a roof can't be understated.
Currently, Sulzbacher participates in a Duval jail program called CHOP, Chronically Homeless Offenders Program, where homeless people with the most misdemeanor arrests are offered the option of jail time or an apartment with support services once rearrested again.
Housing is a first step to recovery for mentally ill patients. Housing improves health, creates a sense of security and reduces the likelihood of arrest.
"It creates a sense of pride and allows a person to not sleep with one eye open while on the street," Snow said. "It eliminates a lot of stressors. ... It significantly improves their quality of life."
But for now, Ceasar Jones and others like him roam downtown trying to get by any way they know how.Derek Gilliam: (904) 359- 4619