Kirsten Luce for The New York Times  Fritz Salomon, 42, who grew up in Haiti and has been hospitalized 14 times with schizophrenia, is studying for his high school diploma.  Since he came to the United States from Haiti 23 years ago, Fritz Salomon has spent most of his time hospitalized for a disease he barely understands.  For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.  Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.  *Includes $424,833 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.  “The first time, I used to hear voices,” Mr. Salomon, 42, said in Creole-accented English. He also had visual hallucinations. “I don’t know what it is,” he added. “I didn’t tell no one.”  The disease, schizophrenia, was diagnosed in 2008. It caused him to lash out aggressively at one of his brothers, and his father, not knowing what else to do, had him hospitalized.  “My family, they don’t understand,” Mr. Salomon said. All told, he has been hospitalized 14 times.  But his trials did not end there. In December 1997, Mr. Salomon was shot in the leg, randomly, while walking to a church near his home in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He found himself back in the hospital for four months, recuperating from his wounds.  His physical injuries healed, but his mental illness persists. More than anything, Mr. Salomon does not want to be sick, so much so that he does his best to ignore the voices he says he still hears, denying them to most people who ask. He feels comfortable talking about his illness in group therapy, but does not like discussing it elsewhere. “I don’t know how to explain it to anyone,” he said.  It scares him that he will have to take medication for the rest of his life, both for schizophrenia and for diabetes. He also has a learning disability, which prevented him from advancing in school past the sixth grade. He excels at math, he says, but has trouble with reading and writing.  When asked about his childhood in Deschapelle, Haiti, 15 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, he smiles, revealing a set of dimples. His mother was a gardener, he said, and he used to garden with her, and grew sweet potatoes, sugar cane and mangoes. Gardening, he said, helped him feel more balanced.  When Mr. Salomon was 19, he immigrated to the United States; his father worked in a factory in New York City. His two brothers, two sisters, a stepsister and his mother later joined them here. The symptoms of Mr. Salomon’s mental illness first appeared while he lived in Haiti, but the stigma of schizophrenia was such that he tried to keep the problem to himself. In 2003, a particularly aggressive episode prompted his family to ask him to move out.  Mr. Salomon lives in transitional housing at Stepping Stone in Brooklyn, which primarily serves young adults with diagnoses of mental illness or histories of homelessness. He receives about $200 a month in food stamps, and Social Security disability payments cover his rent — which is $919, according to a Web site on Stepping Stone — with a little left over.  His residence counselor at Stepping Stone described him as an overachiever with a strong sense of purpose who rarely asserted himself. He knows where he wants to be in life, but his illness — and his fear of being treated differently — prevents him from getting there. He also believes his accent holds him back.  “Going unnoticed is his comfort zone,” said Kari Nadler, a creative-arts therapist who works with Mr. Salomon at Brooklyn Community Services, one of the agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The agency used $280 from the fund to pay for Mr. Salomon to travel to and from his classes to obtain his high school diploma and, whenever he can make the trip, to a Pentecostal church in East Flatbush.  “He sees asking for help not as a strength, but as a weakness,” Ms. Nadler said.  But Mr. Salomon is learning to raise his hand, she said, and grabs a seat in the front row of his classes at Brooklyn Community Services, where he is learning how to navigate the world independently. Though it will be a long road, he has his heart set on getting his diploma.  “I don’t know how long it will take,” he said, and this bothers him. He wants to have a wife and family, and aspires to be a mechanic or a nurse one day. He also wants to help people as he has been helped, he said.  For now, even small achievements mean a lot. He excels at strategy-based games and loves to play dominoes and checkers. He is known as an undisputed Connect Four champion at Brooklyn Community Services.  “You cannot beat Fritz at Connect Four,” Ms. Nadler said. “People have tried many times.”
Fritz Salomonâs schizophrenia was a stigma in his native Haiti, but his studies here are helping him to be independent; he hopes to become a mechanic or nurse.