Letter: Group homes needed to serve the mentally ill
I also support Claude Oliver’s efforts to seek a solution for the mental health crisis in our community and agree with Ryan Peterson’s July 31 letter on the issue. My late daughter was mentally ill, and we tried her whole adult life to persuade her to seek help, take her meds, have a roof over her head.
In the 1980s, there were two group homes available, and Sunderland Treatment Center had doctors, case managers and nurses for help. Suddenly they disappeared, lack of funding. Claude Oliver was seeking information, and I was also. We had Wilson House in Pasco, a clubhouse for the mentally ill, where they could get a lunch, a free store for clothes and job training. Now that too is gone.
We are going backwards! We need group homes that supervise meds and fix meals for some type of stability. They try hard, but need support. Schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance in the brain, genetically acquired, they can’t help it, and its no one’s fault!
We don’t let our Alzheimer’s clients go free on the streets, why do we not take care of our children who need our help? The streets are not a safe place to live!
Margaret Wilde, Kennewick
This story was originally published August 25, 2016 at 4:11 AM with the headline "Letter: Group homes needed to serve the mentally ill."