San Fernando Mother Hopes 2024 Will Provide More Help for Homeless Mentally Ill Son

This past holiday season, Gina Perez, a resident in the city of San Fernando, enjoyed some peace of mind – her homeless, mentally ill son Joseph Lee Zamora, 43, was safe and back “home,” living on the streets in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. For her son, the streets in primarily Sylmar and San Fernando have been his home for years.

Perez has been a tireless lifeline for her son, who has been caught in the web of schizophrenia, substance use disorder and homelessness for two decades. 

It has been her routine to care for him by locating him every day – at his regular spots in the area – to give him food, clean clothes and other essentials. 

But, he had gone missing and couldn’t be found at his usual spots for three months and Perez was beside herself.  

She later learned he was picked up by police, spent some time in jail and ordered into court-mandated drug treatment in late August and had walked out of a drug rehab facility located in Venice.

During this time, no one knew what had happened to him.

He left the rehab without any resources and somewhat miraculously, he was able to find his way back to the valley. He was spotted in Sylmar on Nov. 28 by a concerned neighbor, and reunited with Perez and other family members later that same day – the mother and son have now resettled back into their previous familiar pattern.

Perez, who is still breathing a tentative sigh of relief, said she hopes 2024 will finally be a turning point for her son.

“I know that there’s hope – there’s always hope,” she told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol. 

“Since he’s been back in the area … I did reestablish [our routine], though not as sequentially as I normally do,” said Perez, explaining that a fractured right foot has left her unable to drive while she recovers. Luckily, her father has been driving her around town to look for Zamora at the usual shopping centers he frequents in the vicinity of Glenoaks Boulevard and Hubbard Street.

“If he’s not there, then I go [down] the street to other places … and sometimes I’m successful in finding him in the mornings and sometimes I’m not,” said the ever-persistent Perez. When she doesn’t find him, she goes looking again later in the day, that evening, or the following morning.

“I will always do my best to help him, to advocate for him as much as I’m capable,” she added.

Since Zamora has been back in the area, Perez has been in touch with social workers from the Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement (HOME) program who have previously provided support for him. Part of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, HOME team members work with unhoused adults 18 and older experiencing persistent severe mental illness to help address their basic needs, conduct clinical assessments and link them to needed services (such as homeless shelters, mental health care or substance abuse treatment).

Just days ago, on Dec. 29, social workers informed Perez that they had made contact with her son at one of his usual locations on the street and spoke with him about the possibility of getting him to accept medical and mental health evaluations, the initial steps necessary to get him back on his medication.

“The social workers have just started re-engaging with him, so he is very skeptical [and] still a little bit paranoid,” she recounted. “I’m hoping that they can build some trust with him and that they’ll be able to encourage him to get back into the routine of taking his medication again.”

As far as Perez is aware, the last time Zamora took his medication (which is prescribed for schizophrenia) with any regularity was back in March of this year. She said, over the 20-plus years that her son has experienced recurrent episodes of schizophrenia, he has never really taken medication over consistent, lengthy periods. Instead, he typically opts to “self-medicate to try to silence the voices in his head” by using illegal drugs, explained Perez.

How Did Zamora Navigate His Way Back?

While the precise details of how Zamora managed to survive the three months he was taken from the community he knew without shelter, money, or the regular support of his mother remain a mystery, she recalls her round-the-clock worry and constant efforts to find him. She traversed Venice and nearby communities distributing flyers, reached out to the courts and law enforcement agencies, and was able to have Zamora listed on a statewide online database for missing persons.

From the conversations she and other relatives have had with Zamora since he resurfaced, she’s heard fragments of his experiences and whereabouts. Between the time he left the facility to the day he was spotted back at the shopping center at Glenoaks Blvd. and Hubbard Street in Sylmar, she knows he rarely had a full meal, subsisting mainly on discarded food he found in the trash. 

Zamora said he spent some time in Koreatown, which he enjoyed because “people were nicer and more helpful” there, he said. He eventually ended up in Chinatown, where he boarded the 92 bus that brought him back to the San Fernando Valley, but it’s unclear how long he had been back in the area when he was reunited with his mother.

Perez said she believes her son will likely face legal repercussions for noncompliance with the court-ordered 90-day rehabilitation stay and for failure to appear at his court hearing on Sept. 13. 

“If my son should get arrested again – which is very probable because eventually he may do something that will trigger an arrest – he will have consequences,” she said.

Will CARE Court be the Answer?

Looking ahead, she remains hopeful that CARE (Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment) Court could be instrumental in getting Zamora the help he needs. Signed into law in late 2022 and rolled out in Los Angeles County in December, CARE Court can facilitate treatment for adults with severe mental illnesses – schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. 

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), CARE Court can “divert individuals from more restrictive conservatorships or incarceration,” allowing for court-ordered treatment for 12 to 24 months. While the program is largely voluntary for participants, Perez said she believes that under certain circumstances CARE Court “can mandate confined care.”

Currently, patients in rehab can simply walk out of the front door before receiving substantial help. For Perez and many others who’ve struggled to get the proper help for their loved ones, confined care could help those patients get on the right medications and turn the corner. The ACLU has questioned whether CARE Court in the end would further erode personal rights.

Despite the possible benefits of CARE Court, there are potential hurdles, she noted.

“What I understand about CARE Court is that the forms require a physician’s statement that the individual has a diagnosis. … Since my son isn’t under the current care of a physician, [that] sign-off would be hard to come by,” explained Perez. In addition, she added, CARE Court “doesn’t necessarily guarantee that an individual is going to have access to the type of care they need, because the demand is still greater than the availability” of existing treatment facilities.

Perez said she tries her best to remain positive and keep pushing forward by taking things one day – and one small step – at a time, to reduce the likelihood of feeling overwhelmed with worry.

“I like to tell myself that I’m a really strong person, and I can manage a lot of things, but this thing is still so hard,” said Perez, quietly holding back tears. “If I don’t think about it, and I just go on with my day and I know [where] my son is, I can manage, so that’s what I try to do.

“Sometimes people think that I seem nonchalant about navigating it all, but I can’t waste tears,” she continued. “If I sit there and cry about something, it’ll take more of a toll on me than actually putting myself into action [and] that’s what I have to do because I have no intention of ever giving up hope on my son.”