Thoughts on redeveloping Allentown State Hospital
From its christening in 1912 as the Pennsylvania State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane, the purpose and intentions of the institution later renamed Allentown State Hospital were to provide care and hope to citizens suffering from mental illness, their families and communities.
A century having passed, to preserve its truest legacy, those same intentions must be the focus of our vision as we consider the future for the 200-acreplus East Allentown site.
More than 25 years ago, I was fortunate to have the experienced counsel of former 131st District state Rep. James Ritter. During one memorable meeting, the topic of the hospital was addressed in depth. He shared with me something that I would never forget.
Having coexisted with the community for over 50 years, with the passage of and his vote for the groundbreaking Community MH/MR Act in 1966, the interest and relationship of the hospital to the community began to change. And a question evolved from that change which he began to hear repeatedly during the rest of his tenure. The question was and still is: What is the future of the state hospital?
Intentionally, within the genesis of that question, a progressive act seeking community-based care for those with mental illness, lies the inevitable and most appropriate answer.
Over the next 20-plus years, through thousands of community and constituent encounters, including with hospital staff and residents and dozens seeking redevelopment opportunities at the site, this question was reflected upon. Economic, environmental, public resources allocation and preservation factors were considered along the way.
Yet, with the demolition of existing structures imminent, the most compelling considerations in the redevelopment of this future clean site reflect an understanding that will always be far from clean, covered not only with the many coats of connection with surviving neighborhoods and children’s services but also with a conscious cohesion to our cumulative enlightenment gained from a century of human experience at the facility and throughout our nation.
For 100 years the hospital served as the home for thousands of our fellow citizens in public institutional mental health. All were very different, coming to the facility with many conditions, from many backgrounds and from all over eastern Pennsylvania. Some stayed for short periods but many, those with the most severe conditions, stayed there for much of a lifetime.
Despite their differences, all had two commonalities. They all, of course, suffered from various mental health challenges and they all would not be there if they could choose otherwise. They were, pursuant to health science and safety protocols of the time, committed there. Separated from families and community, many never again called any other place home except the grounds and inside the stone walls on Hanover Avenue.
Generations of dedicated and talented caregivers at the hospital for the generations of residents understood this truth. With the best intentions, they operated with the tools and methods available for the times.
But in the spirit of the landmark MH/MR act, with advancement in treatment of mental illness, now we know better. We have gained intimate, valuable insight from the experience of public institutionalized care for mental health in our community and we now can do better for our loved ones and for our fellow citizens with mental illness who can reach their full potential and who can fulfill their dreams independently.
Accordingly, in our collective consideration of ideas for redevelopment, we must challenge ourselves to recommend a plan that provides the broadest assortment of residential, commercial and vocational offerings. We need a plan that complements the communities that surround it and attracts the maximum amount of diversity modeling our region.
We need a plan that is fully inclusive in its ability to accommodate people of all incomes and of all challenges, either mental, intellectual or physical. We need a plan envisioning a place that rises beyond the legacy of the limits of the site’s thick stone walls where the thousands who resided at the hospital, if they were all with us and could speak to us today, would covet and would choose to live. We need a place they would commit themselves to and enthusiastically choose to call home.
In this way we will be successful in honoring the truest legacy of the hospital to our community. In this way, we will pursue a path that is more timeless and more transcendent than the stone and mortar on the site was ever meant to accommodate.
Pat Browne is the state senator from the 16th Senatorial District and majority chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.