Zoning and Services
Nimbyism (not in my backyard) is alive and well in Long Beach (“Zoning Limits on the Down and Out,” July 14). Apparently mentally ill people under treatment are among several groups unwanted in Long Beach because “they are flocking to downtown areas for services.”
Serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, manic depression and clinical depression, are biologically based brain diseases that can frequently be successfully treated with a combination of medicine and counseling. To deny medicine to a sick person is cruel and inhumane. To refuse a zoning permit to a mental health treatment facility because it attracts people trying to get help makes about as much sense as denying an office to a cardiologist because his practice brings people with heart disease into the neighborhood.
FRANK C. BARON
Los Angeles
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