Lake Worth resident Paul Gionfriddo - "Losing Tim"

In this last Sunday's Palm Beach Post, there is a story by Carlos Frias about our Lake Worth neighbor Paul Gionfriddo. Mr. Gionfriddo was a guest on my podcast last year which you can listen to it here. Mr. Gionfriddo's story is a sad and long one. His son is schizophrenic and he recently wrote a book about the process and realization you can see here. 

One of the topics we discussed on the show was our "intake" system for too many of the mentally ill here in Palm Beach County turns out to be local law enforcement and the county jail. Possibly in the near future, I'll have Mr. Gionfriddo back as a guest once again and see if there's been any improvement in Palm Beach County's services for the mentally ill. Following is an excerpt from Mr. Frias' story in the Post and take note of Mr. Gionfriddo's extensive career and work over the years to help our mentally ill citizens:

Paul Gionfriddo is looking forward to getting a mug shot of his son.
He shakes his head. He knows how that sounds.
But it has been more than three years since he has so much as seen his son, Tim. More than a year since he’s heard whether he’s alive.
So when he gets a call in the middle of the night from a San Francisco area code — it’s always in the middle of the night — his stomach lurches. It always has to do with Tim, who is mentally ill and homeless on the streets of the Bay Area.
Before he picks up, he knows it can be only one of two things.
Either it’s the police alerting him that Tim has gone off the rails again, disappeared from the disjointed mental health system and ended up back in prison.
Or it’s the morgue, looking for a next of kin.
Gionfriddo held his breath when the phone rang in his Lake Worth home two weeks ago. He picked it up — and got the news his son was alive. He asked for a mug shot to be emailed so he could at least see the 29-year-old man he’d adopted as an infant and raised with all the hope and eagerness of any parent.