One year ago, as Ottawa was in the midst of another cold snap, I met a homeless man named JR.

I met him while he was searching for pop cans in garbage bins downtown. He was middle-aged, from Aylmer, and he told me he was collecting cans so he could buy an ounce of gold.

"I need to get some sugar spoons made," he said. "I know how much it's going to cost. I track the price of gold." I stood there not knowing what to say but eventually he lifted his head from a garbage can, looked at me as though something had just occurred to him, and he added:

"Sorry 'bout that. I ramble a bit. I'm psychotic." I ended up writing a column about JR and people contacted me for weeks afterwards. Wanting to help him. Or wanting to comment on a claim I made in the column.

I said "de-institutionalizing" the mentally ill in Ontario was a scandal. A largely ignored, unreported scandal.

A scandal that is happening because we have closed the long-term, psychiatric hospitals in Ontario, a deliberate policy shift made by a provincial government that doesn't want to "warehouse" people.

We would prefer they freeze on the streets.

Anyway, I started thinking of JR the other day when I was interviewing Vern White on CFRA. I had just asked Ottawa's former police chief, and current Conservative senator, what he thought about the recent incident at the Chimo Hotel.

It was part of a larger discussion about policing costs in Canada (they're exploding) and how terrorism threats and investigations are adding to the cost. (You only had to see the phalanx of police around the Chimo last week to understand why.) White gave me an answer I wasn't expecting.

"I think when more details come out about the Chimo you will have a different sort of story," he said.

"I think what has really driven up policing costs, right across Canada, is the number of people police are now dealing with that have severe mental health problems.

"The other day I drove by the Royal Ottawa (Hospital) and I saw six police cars parked in front. When I drove by later in the day, I saw nine. What does that tell you?" White mentioned British Columbia as a province where police are struggling with the de-institutionalization of people who once resided in long-term facilities. But Ontario is no different.

In March 2009, the Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls closed and that was the last, long-term psychiatric hospital in the province. There are none left.

This was a deliberate policy change by a government that wanted to shut down the cuckoo's nest and throw Nurse Ratched out of work. Just last year Premier Wynne apologized to anyone who had ever stayed at a psychiatric hospital in Ontario.

The hospitals were bad and these mistreated residents were now free to be integrated back into the community.

But how do you integrate somewhere when you spend most of your days picking through garbage bins?

To buy an ounce of gold.

To make sugar spoons.

It is absurd what is happening and White, the former cop, knows it.

How many news stories today -- from police stand-offs at the Chimo hotel to armed attacks at the National War Memorial -- have mental health as part of the narrative?

How many police incident reports? Petty crimes? Court dates?

How long are we going to leave police to clean up the mess we've created by our "enlightened" approach to mental health?

***

I tried for three days to track JR down but never found him. Not at a shelter downtown. Not in the areas of town where I used to see him - the Byward Market, the Glebe, Centretown.

I had an old cell number that was disconnected but someone in front of the Salvation Army shelter gave me another. It was busy for three days and then one morning he answered.

"Hello?" "JR, it's Ron Corbett." "Sorry?" He didn't remember me. Or the newspaper story.

"Can I hook up with you later today?" I asked, undeterred.

"I'm going to be pretty busy today." "Are you collecting cans? I can meet you somewhere." "How did you know that?" "Just a guess. Were you able to get your sugar spoons?" "Sugar spoons?" He had no idea what I was talking about.

Of course, when you're talking about mental health in Ontario, just about anyone can make that claim.

ron.corbett@sunmedia,ca