Provide Input on City of Berkeley Mental Health Needs (2020)

What are the most important unmet mental health needs the City of Berkeley should consider when making funding decisions for the next three years?

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17 registered responses

Pat Allen inside District 2

May 5, 2020, 9:20 AM

What are the most pressing unmet mental health needs in the City of Berkeley?

Homeless encampments, whose presence, in addition to the problems for the individuals living there, cause a level of ongoing stress to all citizens in Berkeley. Without minimizing the very real difficulties of those who are unhoused, seeing large and growing enclaves, tents on corners of main streets is extremely stressful. Speaking for myself, it undermines my belief in the effectiveness of our local government, our general empathy and goodwill towards our fellow citizens and it requires a kind of emotional hardening since I feel helpless to have an impact. This creates a passivity and shut down of the heart. I have two young grandsons and I literally cringe every time I pass the tents on the corner of Carleton and Shattuck on the way to their house. How can I explain this as just a fact of life to these young boys while trying to help them grown into caring and active citizens?
What are your ideas on the best ways to address these needs?

Acknowledging this as a problem and undertaking a city wide educational campaign that centers the folks in the encampments interacting with the general citizenry. We need to know our fellow citizens. Something like what was beginning in People's Park a while back with Friday movie nights. But literally some kind of organized times when housed and unhoused can come together and learn what the needs are. We are all learning that we have resources that can be shared. I'm not suggesting anyone scoop up a houseless guy and let him live in your garage.
Is there anything else you would like to share regarding mental health services and needs in the City of Berkeley?

I realize that under the Covid situation this probably sounds ridiculous to think of people being willing to mingle with others and put ourselves at risk. So, not next week. However, this is also a time when hearts are open and a visioning of such things might occur. I suspect the kind of necessary blindness we all experience when we drive by encampments and see the conditions and feel helpless is not diminishing in these times but is in fact even more uncomfortable. And for the pragmatic, are we not endangering our health when we don't care for the health of these folks? Surely Covid is teaching us the truth of being all interconnected, so let's learn how to make that a plus. We can't hide at home forever.

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What are the most pressing unmet mental health needs in the City of Berkeley?

What are your ideas on the best ways to address these needs?

Is there anything else you would like to share regarding mental health services and needs in the City of Berkeley?

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