LOS ANGELES — Today, she lives in a peaceful home, one she’s decorated with pictures, mementos, books and blankets. But for years, an old suitcase was the only reminder of Robyn William’s life beyond a cell.

For 20 years, Williams rotated through a devastating cycle of addiction, homelessness and jail. She was able to hold on to one suitcase through it all that contained family albums and notes.

“It was my life. It didn’t mean nothing to nobody else, just me,” Williams said.

A mother by the time she was 15-years-old, Williams was introduced to drugs by a boyfriend. Several relationships became abusive — the most recent one in 2020.

“It was really physically abusive. The degrading things he would say, the physical harm he would cause. It got to a point to where he beat me on the floor with a belt,” she said.

Williams left the relationship but once again found herself living on the streets.

She was arrested in 2020 — at which point the stress and anxiety of her circumstances overwhelmed Williams.

“I know now it was an anxiety attack, but I thought it was a heart attack,” Williams said. “I was told I would be sentenced 25 years-to-life… I was in the cell by myself. It wasn’t as big as a bathroom, it was just me.”

Williams said she fell to the floor screaming for help — it came in the form of the Office of Diversion and Reentry.

ODR is a program created by the LA County Board of Supervisors in 2015. According to the LA County Health Services website, ODR programs “serve to reduce the number of people in the LA County Jail who have mental health and/or substance use disorders.” 

Participants are diverted away from traditional jail settings and connected with mental health and addiction services. Since the programs’ founding, 9,653 people have been released from LA County Jail and into ODR programs.

Williams was connected to ODR and said it changed the course of her life. Prior to receiving psychiatric care through ODR, she had never been offered consistent support and never thought she needed mental health care.

“I really believed it couldn’t be mental health, because mental health meant you were crazy, I didn’t feel like I was crazy, I felt like I just had to get it together. I had to get my life right. I just had to find a way to survive,” Williams said.

For the first time through ODR, she was told she had experienced traumatic events, including abusive relationships and homelessness. Williams said a therapist explained how mental health care could help.

“She [the therapist] explained what trauma was, what PTSD was, she was explaining these things, and it started to make sense. It started to unravel what I didn’t understand,” Williams said.

After going through a year of ODR treatment, Williams was released on probation. Today her probation is complete, and she works as a care coordinator supporting homeless Angelenos get connected with services. She moved into her own apartment six months ago.

“I know for a fact that ODR changes lives. I know for a fact because it changed my life. If it wasn’t for that opportunity…I never had a fresh start. ODR gave me a fresh start. It helped me clean up the pain I was living with,” she said.

And Williams’ story is just one of the many successes of ODR. According to a 2019 study conducted by the Rand Corporation that followed 311 ODR participants, found that 74% of participants remained in stable housing 12 months after leaving the program.

However, funding the program consistently remains challenging said LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell. In early May, Mitchell, along with Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, introduced a motion to expand ODR by 1,000 beds by the fiscal year 2024-2025. The motion also called on the Chief Executive Officer to report back in 90 days, providing a list of possible funding sources.

“What’s not appropriate to do, is look at one time funding,” Mitchell said about ODR, “every level of government had been flush with one time funding over the past few years, because of Federal Support through the Cares Act and Federal Rescue Plan dollars. There’s a tendency to say here’s a big pot of money — ODR is the kind of program that needs a stable, ongoing funding source,” Mitchell said.

The supervisor added that expanding ODR will be essential as the board moves to close Men’s Central Jail,

“It [Men’s Central Jail] is an antiquated physical plant that no one experiencing a mental health crisis should be in,” Mitchell said. “We have to build the community of those other options to be able to care for people,” she said.

For Williams, access to care changed how she saw herself — she began to shift her perspective — rather than a person consistently making the wrong choices, she was someone who didn’t have the skill set to support herself.

Now, she said she does.

“I’m a good person. I know that within my heart, that I’m a good person and I’ve always been a good person, always. But I had pain,” she said.