By Andy Dahn
BLOOMINGTON – A weekend Closing the Gap Forum on mental health revealed many problems in the community that need to be addressed.
McLean County States’ Attorney Jason Chambers said one of the biggest problems is a lack of housing for the mentally ill.
“If you’re dealing with people who are having to either get regular counseling or take regular medication, we can’t expect them to make that their first priority when they’re not even sure where they’re going to be sleeping that night, or they don’t know where they’re next meal is going to come from,” Chambers said. “You have to have a stable environment for people before you expect them to get everything else under control.”
Chambers said addressing the issues of mental health care in the community starts with changes to the criminal justice system.
“People usually think of that as punishment and incarceration,” said Chambers. “We’re looking at that from a different context of having these folks who aren’t being addressed at a level that they should. It’s escalating to a point where now we have more victims in some cases, now we’ve got to do something to fix it.”
Other issues that Chambers discussed during the forum were inmates with mental illnesses waiting months to be evaluated, as well as the county having only one psychiatrist working eight hours a month to assess those inmates.
Andy Dahn can be reached at andy.dahn@cumulus.com.
