To the Editor:

Many in the community mental-health system were hopeful about our new administration in Ohio, watching a governor with a background in psychology and the penal system. Now, however, the hopefulness having moved to cautiousness is pretty near complete exhaustion. Understand this sentiment comes with all due respect to being handed a huge deficit on top of the multitudinous challenges of the past couple years.

Yet, choices are made. Shutting down state psychiatric hospitals, reducing funding to the Ohio Department of Mental Health, and vetoing bills that would enable behavioral health boards to provide local levy funding to non-Medicaid programs are all examples.

With our prisons in Ohio filled with more than 40 percent of individuals coping with a severe mental illness, maybe we are moving more toward using jail as a way to "help" people dealing with mental disorders. We have closed psychiatric hospitals and other mental rehabilitation and recovery centers by the handfuls the past two years. Some of these were state-mandated changes, others simply because the programs couldn't appropriate the funding any longer.

This trend of deinstitutionalizing (read: downsizing) the mental-health system has continued since the early/mid 1970's. As many are familiar, in Athens at that point we saw the state mental hospital at the Ridges release many clients without the resources and programs to provide services. Enter, The Gathering Place.

Rita Gillick, who had been hospitalized herself for over 10 years, saw a need for released patients to have a safe place to go. She began meeting with groups of adults, still coping with their mental-health issues. Group members supported one another as family would. They received donations of home-starter kits, connected people to basic medical and psychological services, provided home-cooked meals, helped people get jobs and go back to school if they were able.

Along with the help of local well-known individuals such as Anne Stempel, Shirley Whan, Ed Brown and the late Jim Burgess, the group started The Gathering Place in 1976. The Gathering Place is a non-Medicaid-funded program fostering the recovery of persons with mental illness by providing basic needs, crisis-related services and vital support networks. Clients are connected to secure housing, jobs, healthy food and meaningful activities. The over 115 people we serve per week see improved overall health, personal development and increased community involvement.

If the state really wanted to save money, they would invest in more programs like The Gathering Place that often prevent greater psychiatric needs. Currently, it costs $495/day to provide someone services at a state psychiatric hospital. The price for jail is much cheaper (maybe that's why we're pushing people that route) at $55/day. The Gathering Place costs a mere $12.22/day for the many services, healthy food, support, and holistic community care provided.

To learn more, come out this Saturday to "Walk the Walk" for mental health awareness and support at 10 a.m. at the Athens County Courthouse. Sen. Jimmy Stewart, Rep. Debbie Phillips and Mayor Paul Wiehl will speak briefly. Walkers will enjoy a 5k hike that travels up into the Ridges on the beautiful nature trail and back to Appalachian Behavioral Healthcare for a free lunch, karaoke and raffle.

Scott Kreps, Executive Director,
Athens Mental Health Inc. (The Gathering Place-Athens, Home Away From Home-Logan, The Friendship House-McArthur)