It Takes a Village to Tackle Homelessness: What’s Iowa Doing?

After I read Dr. Dawson’s post today “More on homelessness and violence as a public health problem,” it got me thinking about what the situation on homelessness of people with mental illness and substance use disorder is here in Iowa.

First, I looked at the 2024 Iowa Homelessness Needs Assessment, which is a thorough report you can download if you need it. It’s a 23-page pdf document which doesn’t mention the intersection with the homeless mentally ill until almost the very last page. It gets mentioned in the section subtitled “Improve Coordination With Adjacent Systems”:

To end or substantially reduce homelessness, a coordinated response is needed that aligns the resources in adjacent systems with CoC resources and housing. Homelessness is often caused by and/or exacerbated by the inability of public support systems to address the complex needs of people in extreme poverty experiencing housing crises. These systems include education, hospitals, behavioral health, criminal justice, and child welfare. Engagement and service delivery approaches need to be responsive to the particular needs of people at imminent risk or experiencing literal homelessness. More responsive adjacent systems will provide specialized engagement, enrollment supports, discharge planning, and coordination with CoCs in each region.

Typically, this kind of document makes me thirsty for a more granular, human connected account of what kind of person actually becomes homeless. Are they always dangerous? The answer is “no.”

Actually, there’s this human-interest Iowa’s News Now story published December 27, 2024, “A Closer Look: U.S. and Iowa homelessness reach record highs” (accessed July 28, 2025). It’s about a real person who became homeless despite being a University of Iowa graduate.

People become homeless for many reasons. I just want to mention resources that are available in Iowa that could be helpful. The website Homeless or At-Risk of Homelessness presents the idea that “Sometimes, life takes an unexpected turn. People face hardships and turn toward their communities for support.”

There are some people who struggle with mental illness and substance abuse and as a consequence of those challenges become homeless, as the Iowa Homelessness Needs Assessment above points out.

One resource I think is important is The University of Iowa’s Integrated Multidisciplinary Program of Assertive Community Treatment or PACT program. It’s an evidence-based treatment model that’s been around for decades in many locations in the U.S.

There’s also an Iowa Health and Human Services program called PATH (Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness) to help homeless adults with mental illness, substance abuse and trauma.

This was just a quick and admittedly superficial summary of what Iowans have been doing about the homelessness crisis. It really takes a village.

Extreme Heat Warning for I-80 Corridor

There’s an extreme heat warning from the National Weather Service for much of the I-80 corridor today and tomorrow. Heat indices of 95-110+ are expected.

Cooling Centers in Iowa City, IA

Cooling Centers in Coralville, IA

Consider donating to the Iowa City Shelter House Beat the Heat drive!

Mighty Hawk!

Today we saw this cool Red-Tailed Hawk on the fence—sort of, in a manner of speaking. This hawk was definitely not on the fence about getting brunch though. It would fly off the fence a few times and we expected it would come up with a mouse or squirrel or something—empty claws.

The woodchucks are too big for the hawk.

The experts say you can distinguish a male from a female Red-Tailed Hawk because the female is “25% larger.” I guess that might work if you saw them together—doing something X-rated.

On the other hand, there was a Red-Tailed Hawk named Pale Male that was famous in the New York City Central Park area. He got his name because his head was white. He took several females as mates during his life. They raised several eyasses, which was a new word for me today; it means young hawks. Mary Tyler Moore (“Oh, Rob”) participated along with other neighbors in protests about anti-pigeon spikes being removed and eventually they were replaced by “cradles.”

If you don’t remember the “Oh, Rob!” quote it was Mary Tyler Moore’s (as Laura Petrie) frequent complaint about husband Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) on the Dick Van Dyke show (sitcom in the 1960s). Give yourself a gold star if you thought of the X-File episode “Arcadia” in which Agents Mulder and Scully took the names of the Petries.

Anyway, the Red-Tail Hawk is an impressive bird. It was just not a lucky day for hunting.

A Few Words About the Panera Jumbo Cobb Salad

Well, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that I am lucky to still be independently mobile today after eating the FULL Panera Bread green goddess chicken cobb salad—as in full stomach.

I’ll admit I didn’t know what I was getting into. You know the salad is big when it comes with a ladder.

It’s supposed to be a healthy salad although there are cautions about the green goddess dressing—don’t worry, it was barely noticeable.

I got it around noon at the mall. It’s a bad time to try to get lunch because half the city is in there and they’re all hungry. You know it’s busy when potential customers are told the wait is 45 minutes. I was lucky; I think I waited around 15 minutes. Tables were hard to find. I ducked into a booth two guys were busy thumb wrestling for.

You need to bring an axe because, of course, you’ll have to slaughter the chicken—after she lays the eggs because they go on the salad. Plan on extra time to pick the tomatoes—in the back; way in the back.

This thing about the eggs in the salad probably began with the story about how the cobb salad got started. I read that it started in the 1930s after the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant closed for the night and the salad supposedly was invented by the owner, Robert Howard Eggs…no, wait, that’s Cobb.

Cobb was starved around midnight because he’d been working hard all day wondering what the difference was between a bowler hat and a derby hat and why in heck had he not picked the name the brown bowler for his restaurant because of the alliterative effect and so had not eaten all day.

So, Bob Cobb grabbed whatever leftovers were in the kitchen at the time and thought it was terrible. He texted Domino’s and while eating their famous egg pizza had a brainstorm about marketing a salad with eggs in it and naming it after Ty Cobb because he was observed once having bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Remember, this history moment was brought to you by Serutan; that’s Natures spelled backwards.

They had to carry me out of Panera’s in a wheelbarrow.

Shout Out to Dr. George Dawson for Post “The Autocratic Approach to Homelessness”

I want to give a shout out to Dr. George Dawson for his post today “The Autocratic Approach to Homelessness” in reference to President Trump’s most recent executive order, “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” As a retired psychiatrist, I look back and remember seeing the problem of the homeless mentally ill a lot. You can read my take on it from last summer’s posts:

What About Bob?

Thoughts on the Homeless Mentally Ill

Thoughts on Hobos and Homelessness

I spend a lot of time joking around on my blog, but this is no joking matter. I think the President gets it wrong.

A Small Update to a Pseudo-Rap YouTube Video and a Big Tribute to Dr. Robert G. Robinson

I just noticed something about one of my YouTube videos that I made sort of as a combination gag and educational piece about pseudobulbar affect. It needed a couple of updates—one of which is minor and which I should have noticed 10 years ago when I made it.

It’s a pseudo-rap performance (badly done, I have to agree although it was fun to make), but it’s one of my most watched productions; it has 18,000 views.

One minor update is about the word “Dex” in the so-called lyrics of this raggedy rap song (see the description by clicking on the Watch on YouTube banner in the lower left-hand corner). It stands for dextromethorphan, one of the ingredients along with quinidine in Nuedexta, the medication for pseudobulbar affect. Dextromethorphan has been known to cause dissociation when it’s abused (for example, in cough syrup).

The most important update is about Dr. Robert G. Robinson, who I joked about in the piece. He passed away December 25, 2024. He was the chair of The University of Iowa Dept. of Psychiatry from 1999-2011. He was a great teacher, mentor, and researcher. He published hundreds of research papers and books on neuropsychiatric diseases like post-stroke depression and pseudobulbar affect. He lectured around the world and was widely regarded as a brilliant leader in his field.

Early in my career in the department, I left twice to try my hand in private practice psychiatry. Both times Dr. Robinson welcomed me back—warmly. He was my co-editor of our book, Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, published in 2010.

All who worked with Dr. Robinson will never forget him.

Don’t Sit for Too Long in the Catbird Seat!

I was just wondering where the saying “you’re sitting in the catbird seat” came from. Some say it’s from how a catbird looks for food sitting on a high or secluded perch.

It’s hard to tell exactly where the saying originated but many point to James Thurber’s short story “The Catbird Seat,” first published in the New Yorker in 1942 and later included in his collected stories, “The Thurber Carnival.” The story’s a hoot and you can find it on line despite it still being under copyright.

Sitting in the catbird seat generally means being in an advantageous or superior position. In terms of health, especially if you’re getting to be an old guy like me, it means trying to maintain your health in several ways. I’m not the greatest example, but there are some hacks out there.

Dietary discretion is important. The whole story about processed and unprocessed food is beyond me but you can read more about it from the experts. One of them is University of Iowa researcher Dr. Terry Wahls. She’s got the low down on a healthy gut and part of her work is studying how an on-line wellness course might help those with multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, long COVID, and cancer patients with fatigue.

Dr. Wahls also like to play in the dirt in her garden, meaning she doesn’t wear gloves. Sena does that too. I worry about things like tetanus, but maybe that’s just me.

Staying mentally sharp is also important. A University of Alabama at Birmingham aging expert has interesting advice, and it includes “complex card games.” I think that would include cribbage, although you wouldn’t know it if you knew how seldom I win in games with Sena.

Exercise is big on the list and another University of Iowa expert says you could get enough with just 5 minutes a day. And it doesn’t necessarily involve barbells.

And after all that, we might be sitting in the cat bird seat! But don’t sit for too long.

Spotting Venus in the Eastern Sky

I was watching a television show last night about UFOs and had to chuckle about some of the segments in which there was a lot of speculation about underground and underwater bases where extraterrestrials typically are thought to hide from us while they work on whatever it is they work on.

There was the usual discussion of the Chicago O’Hare airport UFO sighting in 2006 which, according to the official FAA explanation was a weather phenomenon known as a “punch hole” cloud. Of course, true believers don’t believe that.

The show also rehashed the remote viewing theme in which somebody describes and draws pictures of things which are said to be seen remotely, often of extraterrestrials and humans working together on antique cars.

Remote viewer: I see many objects lining the walls of a hollowed-out mountain in Wyoming.

Observer: What are the objects?

Remote viewer: They are…socket wrenches. Billions and billions of socket wrenches.

Observer: Zzzzzzzz.

I thought about that show as I was walking out to the mailbox pod early this morning. I saw a very a bright object in the eastern sky. It didn’t move. It wasn’t disk-shaped and it didn’t look like an orb. It didn’t abduct me. It looked like a star, which I decided it was. I looked around the internet and it was most likely Venus, sometimes called the morning star (it also can be known as the evening star).

That reminded me of an X-File episode in which Jesse Ventura, a former Minnesota governor (1999-2003), had a role. The episode was “Jose Chung’s from Outer Space” and it’s one of my favorites. Ventura played a man in black.

I’m not saying Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) don’t exist and I don’t know why we need to call them Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) nowadays. I’m just saying that the morning star is a beautiful thing.

The Big Mo Pod Show: “In the Pocket”

Here’s something fun, try to explain what the phrase “in the pocket” means. The song selections in the pod show led up to a short discussion of what it means—which I didn’t get at all. I don’t think it matters for the ordinary listeners, although former music teachers like Big Mo obviously know what the term means. He taught music for years, has performed, and uses the lingo to explain what “in the pocket” is all about. It’s way over my head, but then I don’t need to know anything about it to enjoy music.

Big Mo Pod Show 070 – “In The Pocket”

I tried to look up the meaning of the terms “in the pocket” on the web. I took a quick look at a website called Sage Audio. The title is “What is In-the-Pocket for Music?” I couldn’t find the author’s name because I didn’t see a byline.  It’s very long and technical and seems geared for sound engineers. One sentence by the writer caught my attention under the heading “What is In-the-Pocket for Music in Detail”:

“It isn’t uncommon to hear a music term and wonder what it means exactly. Becoming well versed in music means understanding its discourse, which can certainly be easier said than done.”

Here’s how far out in left field I am. Depending on how I read that, I’d almost recast the last part of that sentence: “…which can certainly be easier done than said.” I realize the sense of it is that becoming adept in making music means understanding the lingo. I just don’t understand the lingo, which makes me wonder if musicians have some kind of inner body sense for timing in music as it’s performed which may not readily translate to language for the layperson.

I was like a lot of other students in junior high music class. We were pretty good at whispering or half-mumbling the songs we were supposed learn to sing out loud. That really annoyed the music teacher. I don’t know if Big Mo can relate to that or not. We were supposed to learn the song “Sloop John B.” I’m not sure if we were doing the Beach Boys version or the original “The John B. Sails.”

It hardly mattered. We sounded like we ate up all the corn and held it in our mouths while mumbling. We just stuck our hands in our pockets, moaned the words, and were never in the groove. I don’t think a metronome helped. In fact, I’m not sure there was a metronome.

I have to mention that I probably was too young to know that the song by Little Ed and the Blues Imperials, “Walking the Dog,” was about a kind of dance. I never danced although most of the dancing kids on American Bandstand had the same answer to Dick Clark’s question on what they liked about the song—it was always “the beat.” I guess they knew that meant the number was “in the pocket.”

The Hummingbird is a Blur!

Yesterday I noticed a hummingbird hovering about the flower pots on our porch. I hurried to get my point and shoot camera and shot video, through a window as usual and it was getting a little late in the evening too, so light was low.  

Can I blame the bird for always looking like a blur—or not? Anyway, the video looks similar to others I’ve managed to capture in years past, except this one was the closest I’ve ever gotten to one. I tried messing with the clip using my video editing software, but I ended up believing it best to leave it mostly unmessed around with.

On the other hand, the one I got about 6 years ago was pretty fair for an amateur backyard birder. Same camera, same software although I was closer to the birds and I’m pretty sure I was sitting outside and very patient. They were very interested in our little feeder.

I think the hummingbirds we’ve seen are ruby-throated species partly because that’s the most common in Iowa. Typically, I think it’s just the males who have ruby-colored throats; our visitor didn’t.

I guess the usual way to attract hummingbirds is with a feeder but other people say there are other reasons hummingbirds visit us. More common to the indigenous peoples, they may be thought of as the spirits of those who recently died and are visiting those they were close to.

I don’t remember the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” so well but I’ve glanced briefly at web articles which connect it with hummingbirds, which has something to do with their ability to fly backwards or in a figure 8, maybe connecting that with reverse aging or infinity. Other symbolic connections are with joy, healing, and partnership. There are so many connections they seem to blur together—sort of like the bird itself as it hovers and flits from flower to flower.

I think this hummingbird just really liked Sena’s flowers.