Mayor announces re-opening of clinic our member chained himself to
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Kowboy and Cheryl at the lectern yesterday.
THREE public mental-health sites will open this year — one in Roseland. And police have been removed from "CARES" crisis response.
Yesterday, Mayor Johnson announced that by the end of the year, the Department of Public Health will re-open its Roseland mental-health clinic/center. Plus the Department will open public mental-health clinics in Pilsen and West Garfield Park.
Kowboy chained himself in the Roseland clinic in protest in 2016.
EQUALLY IMPORTANT: The City government has now removed police from ALL of its "CARE" program, which responds to growing portion of the mental-health emergency calls in Chicago. And the City announced that it will replace all Chicago Fire Department EMTs with EMTs employed by the Department of Public Health.
Read coverage in the Tribune, WBEZ, NBC, ABC, WTTW, Crain's, Hoodline, and the Sun-Times.
At a press conference yesterday, our health organizer Cheryl Miller said: "People fighting for these centers put everything on the line. We would like to acknowledge people who are not here today: people who we need and voices that we lost because these clinics were closed... because of police response to crises... because we did not have mental health professionals, peer support, or EMTs."
In 2016, after Mayor Emanuel closed and privatized the City's free public clinic in Roseland, our member Ronald "Kowboy" Jackson chained himself to it in protest. And in 2012 we occupied the Woodlawn clinic Mayor Emanuel was closing.
Call on City Council to support more recommendations released today!
Yesterday the City released a report with no fewer than 40 recommendations on implementing Treatment Not Trauma goals. Check it out: "The People's Vision for Mental and Behavioral Health: Mental Health Systems Working Group Expansion Report"
We want to call on many alderpeople to support ALL 40 recommendations and help make them happen. Use this simple form to call on your alderperson to do this. (Note that we are only targeting certain alderpeople. If we're not targeting your alderperson, the form will tell you that after you enter your address.)
Clinics, non-police response, AND a community care worker corps
Recall that in February and March, our coalition — the Collaborative for Community Wellness — held a series of listening sessions across Chicago and did a survey. Check out the resulting report, including these five demands:
Creation of a Community Care Worker Corps of community members to help people in crisis and on an ongoing basis.
Comprehensive behavioral-health services like therapy at all facilities, PLUS at each facility, a variety of specific services needed in the area. Re-brand City mental-health centers as “community wellness centers.”
Local boards for each community wellness center, to expand the current Community Mental-Health Board. This would allow neighbors, patients, and others in the community to understand the quality of care being offered (through an accessible database), and to raise issues and opportunities that lead to improvements.
As always: Barrier-free access to mental healthcare and community-wellness programming, both ongoing and for people in crisis.
As always: Police-free crisis first-response teams for the whole City, integrated with City community wellness centers, ensuring that people get both immediate and long-term support.