County Issue / Housing the Mentally...

Clyde Reynolds, Director, Turning Point Foundation, which runs a center for the mentally ill in Ventura

The first problem I see is that all the people with mental illness cannot be lumped into one category. People will need different settings to live in, depending on the degree of their disability. Anyone who is capable of living in the community in normal housing should be able to do so. People should be given a chance to live as independently as possible. The real concern I have--and I think the Fair Housing Act addressed that--is that even if a person has a mental disability, he or she should be afforded all the rights that any other citizen has to fair housing. No person should be discriminated against just because they have some sort of mental disability. If a person does need a higher degree of care and supervision, however, there should be places where that is provided. People should be placed in an institution only as a last resort. Experience shows there are many more people capable of living independently than are given the opportunity to do so.

Randy Feltman, Director, Ventura County Mental Health Department

Housing for the mentally ill involves creating an array of different situations that range from very supervised, and even locked, environments to supported independent living. There isn’t one kind of housing for people with mental illness, because of the differing levels of people out there. People who are receiving treatment for serious mental illnesses can be doing very well. If a person receives proper care and treatment, he or she can live independently and work like anyone else. There are others who, even with treatment, still need more supervision and treatment. They cannot live independently. The big issue on the independent-living side is that it has to be affordable. Most of the mentally ill make about $650 a month. Our preference is to have as many of our clients living independently as can afford it and are able to do so.

Nancy Nazario, Coordinator, Ventura County Homeless Ombudsman Program

I don’t think anyone could have prevented the murder near the hospital. When you have someone who is homicidal and mentally ill, they need humane treatment, but it must be in a secure place. We haven’t found a drug or a treatment yet that can cure a homicidal, severely mentally ill person. To say there is one solution--say, opening up the state hospitals and rounding them all up and throwing them in--well, that is not going to work. I think we have to provide ample, low-cost housing, and combine that with adequate treatment for people who can live in the community. One of the biggest myths of homeless mentally ill is that it is the result of deinstitutionalization, which started in the early 1960s. The homeless mentally ill became a problem in the 1980s, after severe cutbacks in subsidized housing. Between 1982 and 1989, these programs were cut almost 80%. People who are severely mentally ill rely on subsidized housing, but there is a drastic shortage in that kind of housing. The resources we used to have to house the mentally ill have evaporated.

Lou Matthews, Member, Ventura County Alliance for the Mentally Ill, parent of a mentally ill man

First of all, you have to have housing for the most seriously mentally ill, and by housing I mean a place that is probably not an independent living arrangement. There are a lot of ways to have independence, and it is certainly not a put-down for a person to live in a board-and-care facility. All this push to get people living independently is a step in the wrong direction, although some of the clients will disagree with me. The reality is that there is an illness underlying their disability. That is not to say that someone who truly can live independently should not be given that right, but I think they are better off living together, possibly in a group home setting, where there is some oversight. We need facilities that can provide shelter, food, laundry service--the sort of things that mentally ill people are often too stressed out to provide for themselves. Our son does not need a locked facility, but he needs a lot of oversight.

Myron Dimmett, Director, Camarillo State Hospital

Some of the mentally ill are in more of a crisis situation than others, but there is no need to warehouse all of them. It has been shown that this is not necessary. There is a whole continuum of possible ways to treat the mentally ill, from institutional situations to providing community services. While I don’t know where the best place for them to be housed is, I think the idea of providing services across this whole continuum is the best way to go. Some people may not be able to live in the community, because they could become a danger to themselves or others. These folks may require more treatment, which could be provided in a day-patient or institutional setting. The institutional setting is not the appropriate place to receive treatment, though. For many, we simply need to provide the tools they need to live in a community and to help them identify the signs that might show that they need to seek more care. In the end, I don’t know that there is any one ideal setting for people in need of mental health services.