Anita Chabria: California's most famous homeless man is dead. His life should guide CARE Court
VACAVILLE, Calif. — For the 16 years James Mark Rippee lived on the streets of this Bay Area town, his sisters Catherine Rippee-Hanson and Linda Privatte unsuccessfully begged politicians, bureaucrats and medical professionals to give their schizophrenic baby brother the help he so clearly needed — but didn't want.
Their advocacy made Rippee possibly the most famous homeless man in California — known well to state and local legislators and repeatedly written about by media. But it did no good.
In late November, Rippee was dumped at a hospital in the middle of the night gasping for breath, still too deep in his severe mental illness to understand he needed medical care. He died a few days later at the age of 59.
Officially, he was killed by pneumonia and sepsis that led to organ failure, but Rippee-Hanson is clear that the real cause is the over when it is fair and necessary to intervene in the life of someone with serious
