Mauro Galvan’s family panicked when he didn’t come home.
On a warm day last October, Galvan was released from the state’s Elgin Mental Health Center, where he was being treated since being found not guilty by reason of insanity in an attack on a nurse in 2019.
He was supposed to be delivered to his brother, with whom he was planning to live. But his brother, who works in construction and couldn’t leave his jobsite, coudn’t keep his appointment to pick him up.
So, according to his family, Galvan was dropped off by an Illinois Department of Human Services worker on the sidewalk in front of the Pacific Garden Mission at 1458 S. Canal St. in Chicago, with the state employee then driving away.
Galvan, 39, apparently never entered the building.
His disappearance set off a desperate, months-long search. On Jan. 22, the Chicago Police Department circulated a missing-person poster of him.
He was found about two weeks later, on Feb. 4. A friend of his family spotted Galvan in Back of the Yards, where he and his siblings grew up. His family picked him up at a McDonald’s.
He told them he’d been living in tents, “out in the cold,” under blankets, with other people who didn’t have housing. He wasn’t able to give his family a clear account of what happened to him but said his “eye hurt.”
He had been taken in an ambulance to a hospital. His relatives think he was placed in psychiatric care, but they don’t know where.
Galvan told his family he was given a bus pass, and that’s how he wound up in Back of the Yards.
His sister Cristina Galvan, a Chicago elementary school teacher, says her brother has been in and out of hospitals since he was a teenager because of mental illness.
“He hears voices,” she says. “He can become very, very violent.”
Once, Mauro Galvan broke his mother’s arm. Another time, he threw himself out of a van and broke his own arm because he didn’t want to be in a hospital for mental treatment. And once he attacked his mother’s boyfriend, who had to get stitches.
“He used to run after me with knives when I was 10,” Cristina Galvan says.
But his family loves him and understands his illness. They have continued to house him and try to make sure he takes his meds.
Cristina Galvan says she had visited Mauro in the Elgin facility. She didn’t feel the staff respected her or Mauro. Still, she was stunned that he was dumped on the street to fend for himself.
She says that, when she went to the Elgin hospital to ask about her missing brother, she was told, “ ‘Oh, we’re not responsible. Once he’s released, our responsibility is just to drop them off. We don’t have to walk them into the actual shelter.’ ”
The search for Mauro Galvan was excruciating for the family. They didn’t know whether he was dead, in jail somewhere or had left the state, Cristina Galvan says.
“At one point, my brother was searching for Mauro 20 hours a day,” she says.
The Illinois Department of Human Services, which operates state mental hospitals, wouldn’t comment on what happened with Mauro Galvan, citing medical confidentiality.
In a written statement, the agency says: “IDHS works to ensure that patients are discharged to the safest available location when they no longer require inpatient care.
“Once a hospital treatment team decides a patient is ready to be discharged . . . a social work team creates an aftercare plan. When possible, patients are discharged to family homes, permanent supportive housing or ‘specialized mental health rehabilitation facilities.’
“However, in some infrequent cases, patients who do not have stable housing and who cannot be placed in another supportive setting, due to factors such as their clinical presentation or criminal background, are discharged to a community-based shelter.
“Upon discharge, patients are provided with documentation listing their planned aftercare appointments, such as physicians, psychiatrists, and/or therapists, including the date, time and location. When family members are involved in the patient’s care, this discharge plan is also shared with them.”
Cristina Galvan says her brother’s experience camping on the streets is an example of how “he literally fell through the cracks” of Illinois’ mental health system.
But he’s doing well now, living with his brother. He’s even learned how to ride a bicycle again.
“We got lucky this time,” she says. “But that’s not always the case for everyone.”
