A grieving mother's effort to reform mental health care

My journey with Saul has ended, but it doesn’t mean his legacy has. Nobody is going to change the system until we, the families, change it.”

Rosa Nazar

At night, Saul Nuñez often had trouble sleeping and shuffled in and out of his Kingsbridge apartment where he lived with his mother, chain smoking cigarettes until sunrise. But on the night of Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, Nuñez walked out of his home and never returned. Instead, he was found by the NYPD the next morning, hanging from a noose in Van Cortlandt Park.

It had been five years since Nuñez was released from Rikers Island. He was detained for beating a 91-year-old man in Inwood. For 29 months he was held without trial, a stay which his mother believed ultimately led to his demise.

“I knew Saul was never free from the horrors of Rikers,” his mother, Rosa Nazar, said. “It was like a death sentence for him. He was not a criminal, but a young man with schizophrenia whom the mental health system has failed.”

In mid-November, Nazar set up a GoFundMe page in her son’s memory, which has raised more than $10,000 to date. She plans to keep his legacy alive by helping others with severe mental health issues through a grassroots initiative. 

Nazar and her son often discussed creating nonprofit housing. They imagined a building with multiple community rooms on every floor. Nuñez envisioned a space to accommodate others with insomnia – a common symptom of schizophrenia he suffered from – with activities and resources in common areas throughout the night. The mother-and-son thought up an open floor plan which they believed would help combat loneliness and foster a more supportive and welcoming environment. With this nonprofit, Nazar hopes to fill the gaps her son fell into when searching for a safe place to live. 

“People with mental illness need a safe home environment,” she said. “Somewhere they can socialize but still have independence and privacy when needed.” 

Nazar said she would like to provide both transitional and permanent housing, offering on-site support services and independent living programs tailored to the unique needs of each tenant. 

Nazar plans to create the kind of housing nonprofit she feels would have helped her son and is seeking mentors from larger organizations to help guide her through the process. At present, she is assembling a three-person board, the minimum to qualify for tax-exempt status.

“The problem is [New York City] created one system and applied it to everybody, in Rikers and housing,” Nazar said. “Helping people with mental illness means listening to them. Saul needed help, not punishment.”

Nazar was unsure where to turn when her son came home one day, sporting a cane he said would protect him from devils. The police came to her door which she believed were called by concerned residents when they noticed Nuñez walking through the streets with a blanket over his head. Nuñez agreed to be transported to North Central Bronx Hospital. He was released a week later and returned to his mother’s apartment. She believed he needed further treatment, but the hospital told her they had no choice but to discharge him.

Less than three months later, surveillance video captured Nuñez beating an elderly bottle collector with the same cane. The unprovoked attack left 91-year-old Juan Llorens partially deaf in one ear. 

On June 2, 2017, Nuñez was taken into police custody and charged with felony assault in the first degree. He was brought to Bellevue Hospital’s Prison Ward for psychiatric evaluation, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Nuñez’s bail was set at $75,000, a sum his single mother couldn’t afford. Facing up to 15 years in prison, Nuñez was transferred to Rikers Island, where he would spend more than two years without trial. 

While housed in a Rikers’ specialized mental health unit, he began receiving monthly injections of the antipsychotic Invega and was later moved to the general population. Although the voices and hallucinations lessened, Nuñez told Nazar he was often afraid of other inmates. 

In 2019, his case was moved from criminal to mental health court, where he pled guilty. He was released and required to complete a year-long mental health program.

After his release from Rikers, Nuñez hoped to find an available supportive housing unit in Riverdale or Kingsbridge, near his mother. The two searched for an open room in the area with no luck, expanding their search to other boroughs. It took more than a year and a half for Nuñez to find an available space.

New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance operates a supportive housing program designed to help adults with mental illnesses and homelessness gain independence by providing a place to live. However, as Nuñez and his mother discovered, there are very few available units and few resources for tenants in need of assistance. 

Nuñez eventually found a shared two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, but returned to his mother’s apartment a few months later.

“It seemed like a nice place in a nice neighborhood, so I thought it was in his mind when he said there were bed bugs,” Nazar said. “Then he sent pictures. It was full of bed bugs. The supportive living made Saul worse.”

Like many other tenants, he spent much of his time alone, locked away in his room. Residents on Saul’s floor, the only one he could access, rarely gathered in the one common area they shared.

“At one point, he even missed Rikers sometimes,” Nazar said. “ I couldn’t believe it. At least there, he had a place to talk with other people.”

The number of inmates at Rikers diagnosed with mental health disorders jumped by over 15% in the last decade and make up more than half the inmate population, according to The New York City Independent Budget Office.

Mothers of inmates who took their own lives while at Rikers or after release, have long campaigned for mental health and prison reforms. 

Nearly a decade ago, Kalief Browder became a symbol of a flawed criminal justice system after spending three years behind bars without being tried or convicted, including over 800 days locked in solitary confinement. He was 16 years old when he landed at Rikers. 

In 2015, two years after his release, Browder committed suicide. 

His mother, Venida Browder became an outspoken advocate for justice reform. Since Kalief's death, she brought two lawsuits against New York City on behalf of her son, and won a $3.3 million settlement, according to a New York Times report in 2019. Her advocacy helped lead a movement to end solitary confinement for juveniles. 

By 2021, inmates freed the same year as Nuñez made up over 25% of all adult suicides nationwide, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“My journey with Saul has ended, but it doesn’t mean his legacy has,” Nazar said. “Nobody is going to fix the mental health system until we, the families, change it.”

Juan Llorens, the victim of the assault, made a full recovery and has since met with Nazar and expressed forgiveness towards her son.

To support Nazar's effort visit https://gofund.me/ac94abce.

This article was updated at 3:46 p.m. on Jan. 13.