Health
Overlooked No More: Joyce Brown, Whose Struggle Redefined the Rights of the Homeless
This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.
Joyce Brown’s New York minute lasted longer than most. A onetime secretary, Brown became homeless in 1986 and began camping on a heating grate on Second Avenue and 65th Street in Manhattan.
A year or so passed before she was picked up by city officials, involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital — where she was declared mentally ill — and forcibly given medication. Brown, who was better known as Billie Boggs, was the first homeless person to become the focus of Mayor Edward I. Koch’s newly expanded initiative to address the increasing visibility of homelessness and untreated mental illness on the streets.
But, as she would later say in interviews, the city chose “the wrong one.” Unlike the dozen or so other people who would face similar fates, she said she knew her rights, and she would begin exercising them the very next day.
What followed was a landmark lawsuit centered on mental health, civil liberties and the involuntary psychiatric treatment of homeless people. “I’m not insane,” Brown would say. “Just homeless.”
Before long, Brown was lofted from the pavement to prominence, with a whirlwind of interviews on talk and news programs.
By the time Brown died of a heart attack on Nov. 29, 2005, at 58, she had long been forgotten.
But the repercussions of her transitory fame still echo on the city’s sidewalks and subways, as Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams have introduced their own initiatives to address homelessness in New York, including involuntarily hospitalizing people in psychiatric crisis.
Joyce Patricia Brown was born on Sept. 7, 1947, in Elizabeth, N.J., the youngest of six children, most of whom had been born in South Carolina and Florida.
Her father, William Brown, told census enumerators in 1950 that he was unemployed. Her mother, Mae Blossom Brown, worked in a factory assembling luggage.
Some time after graduating from high school, Joyce Brown worked as a secretary for the Elizabeth Human Rights Commission, where she may have learned a thing or two about her own constitutional privileges. She also worked as a clerk for Elizabeth’s mayor at the time, Thomas G. Dunn, and for Thomas & Betts, an electrical equipment manufacturer, according to a death notice from Nesbitt Funeral Home in Elizabeth.
By 18, though, she was addicted to cocaine and heroin and was stealing money from her mother. Her mother died in 1979, which, her relatives said, might have sparked a further downward spiral emotionally.
By 1985, she had lost her job. She took turns living with her sisters in New Jersey and was treated briefly in clinics and hospitals. Her sisters’ efforts to help her resulted in arguments, and in 1986 she moved to Manhattan, where she made her home on the sidewalk near a Swensen’s ice cream parlor on the Upper East Side, urinating and defecating outdoors nearby.
She adopted the name Billie Boggs, a twisted homage to Bill Boggs, a television host on WNEW (now WNYW), with whom she had become enraptured.
To some neighbors and regular passers-by, she became a New York fixture, the kind you don’t find in the guidebooks; they would converse with her about the news. To others, she was a menace — cursing and shouting racial epithets, particularly at Black men, and even punching people.
Her sisters sought to have her hospitalized. But doctors said she did not present a danger to herself and released her.
On Oct. 12, 1987, after she had been monitored for months under a Koch administration strategy known as Project HELP (the initials stood for Homeless Emergency Liaison Project) — intended to remove severely mentally ill homeless people from Manhattan’s streets and forcibly provide them with medical and psychiatric care — she was taken to the emergency room at Bellevue Hospital, where she was admitted and injected with a tranquilizer and an anti-psychotic drug.
The next day, according to a 1988 article in New York magazine, she called the New York Civil Liberties Union from a pay phone at the hospital. Norman Siegel, the organization’s executive director, was one of the lawyers assigned to her case. In court, a Bellevue psychiatrist presented a diagnosis of “chronic paranoid schizophrenia.”
That night, one of her sisters recognized her from a courtroom sketch on the TV news.
That image was in stark juxtaposition to a photograph produced by her family, which showed a smiling Brown, wearing a red dress and gold earrings as she was being hugged by a man in a tuxedo with a pink bow tie, her sisters smiling into the camera nearby.
“This used to be my sister,” one of the sisters told Newsday. “This used to be us.”
A State Supreme Court judge ruled that Brown was “not unable to care for her essential needs” and ordered that she be released, but she remained at Bellevue while the city appealed the decision. The city won the appeal, but after a subsequent appeal by Brown’s lawyers, a judge’s ruled that she could not be forcibly medicated. That appeal was dropped when Bellevue released Brown, saying there was no point in her staying if she could not receive the hospital’s care. She had spent a total of 84 days there.
She soon evolved into a media star, a symbol of justice who, her lawyers said, presented herself in her lucid and articulate interviews a more or less rational example of urban bivouacking who was, she said, “under surveillance” for months “like I was a criminal.”
“In a civilized society you don’t just go around picking up people against their will and bringing them to the hospital when they’re sane just because of a mayor’s program,” she told Morley Safer for a 1988 segment of the CBS News program “60 Minutes.” “All of this is political. I am a political prisoner because of Mayor Koch.”
In the same segment, Mayor Koch insisted that defecating on the street was “bizarre” and said that Brown’s ability to speak articulately on camera demonstrated the efficacy of her hospitalization and the medication she had been given.
That year Brown also appeared on “The Phil Donahue Show,” after being outfitted from Bloomingdale’s, and delivered a lecture to a Harvard Law School forum in which she offered “a street view” of homelessness. Book and film offers flooded the offices of the New York Civil Liberties Union. The Associated Press called her “the most famous homeless person in America.” At his Moscow Summit with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan invoked her case as an example of freedom in contrast to Moscow’s policy of detaining political dissidents by claiming they were mentally ill.
“Rather than talking about me, why doesn’t the president assist me in getting permanent housing?” Brown was quoted as saying.
In the wake of Brown’s case, Project HELP faced public scrutiny and criticism. The program’s momentum stalled, and it was eventually discontinued. Brown’s lawsuit continues to serve as a precedent in debates over mental health, homelessness and civil liberties.
After Brown was released, she worked briefly as a secretary for the civil liberties union. But she quit because, she said, she didn’t like the job.
“The spunkiness that I had always admired dissipated,” Siegel said of her in an interview.
She put on weight; her gait slowed; she might have been medicated again for a while. Around 1991, she moved into a supervised group home for formerly homeless women, but she also returned to the streets to panhandle, saying that her sisters had delayed forwarding her more than $8,000 in Social Security checks. She continued to live on $500 a month in disability pay and avoided the press.
When Brown was initially released from Bellevue, it was against the recommendation of two dissenting State Supreme Court justices. “We may be approaching the time,” they wrote, “when the problem of the homeless will be confronted with sincere and realistic attitudes and resources.”
“Now,” Siegel said, “35 years later, the hopes of the dissenting justices have unfortunately still not materialized.”
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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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Research continues to uncover new details on how fasting may help extend life.
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications investigated how intermittent fasting can boost longevity in small worms often used in aging research.
Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas compared worms that were fed normally to those that underwent a 24-hour fast in early adulthood and were then fed again, according to a press release.
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The scientists measured a variety of factors, including stored fat, gene activity related to fat metabolism and lifespan.
The results showed that the life-boosting benefit did not depend on the fasting itself but on the body’s behavior after eating again.
Experts say sustainability is key when choosing a long-term weight-loss strategy. (iStock)
Study lead Peter Douglas, associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine at UT Southwestern, suggested that these discoveries “shift the focus toward a neglected side of the metabolic coin – the re-feeding phase.”
“Our data suggest that the health-promoting effects of intermittent fasting are not merely a product of the fast itself, but are dependent on how the metabolic machinery recalibrates during the subsequent transition back to a fed state,” he said.
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“Our findings bridge a gap between lipid metabolism and aging research,” he added. “By targeting aging, the single greatest risk factor for human disease, we move beyond treating isolated conditions toward a preventive model of medicine that enhances quality of life for all individuals.”
Lauri Wright, director of nutrition programs at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health, called this a “high-quality” study that adds an “important nuance to how we think about fasting and longevity.”
Intermittent fasting typically involves limiting meals to an eight-hour daily window or fasting every other day. (iStock)
The benefits of the refeeding phase after fasting were “especially interesting,” Wright, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
“The researchers showed that longevity was linked to the body’s ability to turn off fat breakdown after fasting, allowing cells to restore energy balance,” she reiterated.
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“From a scientific standpoint, that’s a meaningful shift because it suggests fasting is not just about burning fat, but about metabolic flexibility.”
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Fasting may support longevity through triggering metabolic switching, enhancing cellular repair and stress resistance and improving markers like insulin sensitivity, research shows.
Limitations and cautions
Although this study provides “important insight” on the power of refeeding, Wright noted that the findings should be approached with caution, as the study was done on worms and cannot always be translated to humans.
“Additionally, it explains how a process might work in a controlled lab condition rather than real-world eating behaviors,” she added as a limitation. “Finally, the study is short-term and doesn’t give us the long-term translation on lifespan outcomes.”
The review found intermittent fasting was barely more effective than doing nothing, according to the study authors. (iStock)
Wright cautioned that fasting is “not a magic solution for longevity, and how you eat overall matters more than when you eat.”
“I advise, first and foremost, to focus on diet quality, including a variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and minimally processed foods,” she said.
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For those who are considering fasting, it’s better to stick with a moderate plan — like a 12- to 14-hour overnight fast — rather than going to extremes, Wright said. After fasting, she recommends focusing on well-balanced meals.
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Several groups of people should be cautioned against fasting, according to Wright, including those with diabetes who are on insulin or hypoglycemic medications, those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, anyone with a history of eating disorders and older adults at risk of malnutrition.
Anyone considering intermittent fasting should consult with a doctor before starting.
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