Cape needs homeless shelter

Several months ago I fell on an outdoor staircase and hit my head, hard. Nearby was a homeless woman I'll call Diane, normally so preoccupied with the voices in her head that she can hardly keep her mind on anything else. She survives by applying tremendous will power to the tasks of getting food and resourcefully collecting bits of junk to furnish her hidden sleeping place.

But when I hit my head it was as though she abruptly woke from a dream. She checked my eyes to see if my pupils were equal; she told me I shouldn't drive, but should find someone to take me home; that I shouldn't be alone but should have someone ready to take me to the ER. She told me to stay safe. She repeated that I should not be alone.

Then, when she had done the best she could for me, her attention drifted again into the world of those voices.

One night three weeks ago Cape Girardeau came under an urgent tornado warning. I'd looked for Diane that day and couldn't find her. Her hideout was a wreck. I still don't know where she is.

But I know where she should've been that night when deadly winds barely missed Cape, where she should've been in last winter's ice storm. She should have been in a shelter, safe, and not alone.

Shouldn't this city care about her the way she cared about a stranger?

But Cape Girardeau has no homeless shelter.

CYNTHIA DURGAN, Cape Girardeau