A failure to deal with mental illness

The article about how 95.5 percent of inmates in Connecticut jails suffer from a mental illness and or a substance abuse issue tells the true story of this society’s dismal failures.

As a parent of multiple young adults with mental health problems and an advocate for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, I see and hear the stories all the time. We in this world are treated like refugees in our own country. The capitalism that is championed so much in the media doesn’t seem to work so well when you are talking about the people with serious mental illnesses. Especially those who cannot speak for themselves. But then again are the politicians even listening?

When we all can see the tidal wave of gentrification that is happening in New Haven with the onslaught of building going on. At the same time, the authorities forced a tent city on the boulevard out of the area. To where? Who knows? I’m sure many of those souls suffer from mental illness. So what does this land of steady habits offer these hundreds of lost and lonely souls? Insurance obstacles, housing obstacles, lack of continuity of care. The suburbs surely don’t want them inside their boundaries.

Since the deinstitutionalization of the 1960s, it has been a terrible failure. The politicians never have the will to put the money where it needs to go. And after 60 years I guess maybe they never will. These people are our friends, our children and our peers. They are ill through no fault of their own but are treated as disposable. And they end up in jail, where they suffer more abuse and degradation.

This society needs to deal with this better if we are going to stop the bleeding of homeless and abandoned people. We say many times we are better than this, but are we really? It doesn’t look like it. I guess we really are not our brother’s keeper. It seems every man for himself.