Responding to the Bronx’s mental health crisis – New York Daily News

Even in the richest country in the world, mental health care is hard to come by for millions of Americans who, in the age of COVID, have never been more plagued by mental health problems.

Almost one in five American adults live with mental illness, but less than half of them can access treatment, and disparities are especially stark within communities of color.

Nowhere is the need more acute than in the Bronxwhich has the highest rate of psychiatric hospitalizations in the five boroughs, as well as the highest proportion of people with serious psychological disorders.

As lifelong residents of the Bronx who have experienced mental health crises firsthand, we have seen how our beloved community has been chronically denied the comprehensive mental health care it needs and deserves. Much of the Bronx remains a mental health care desert – an astonishing 91% of the population insured by Medicaid in the Bronx live in a designated mental health professional shortage area. In the Bronx and other parts of the United States, mental illness continues to be overcriminalized and undertreated.

I (Ritchie) know firsthand what it’s like to battle mental illness with few options for care. I dropped out of college after experiencing a downward spiral into major depressive disorder. There were times when I tried to kill myself because I felt like the world around me had collapsed. I lost hope

I wouldn’t be alive today, let alone as a member of Congress, if it weren’t for the power of mental health care. I have long been a proponent of both psychiatry and psychotherapy, but neither, alone or even together, is a panacea. The isolation that life often imposes can be as corrosive as mental illness itself.

Belonging to a community, buoyed by a strong support system, is the simple but often overlooked key to alleviating the difficulties of mental illness. Clubhouses can fill the human void left by isolation and can provide a loving and supportive community where none might exist.

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One of us (Arvind) has been hospitalized more than 20 times, experienced one mental health crisis after another, and was forced to travel hours outside of the Bronx just to access basic mental health care. But I have also managed to turn my life around to become a leader, go to college, excel academically, manage a political campaign, have stable housing, and avoid hospitalizations, all thanks to community care.

Reimagining mental health care doesn’t have to be an insurmountable challenge. Community-based mental health care providers, such as Bronx Fountain House, have long demonstrated that there is a cost-effective, culturally competent approach to caring for people with serious mental health problems, a model of mental health care that has delivered life-changing results for decades. Members of Fountain House, both here in the Bronx and in Hell’s Kitchen, have greater access to stable housing, employment and education, as well as lower health care costs and recidivism rates, than most people fighting a serious mental illness.

clubhouse model, pioneered by Fountain House since its founding in 1948 and present in more than 200 clubhouses across the country, offers not only a more humane but also a less expensive alternative to the failed approach the government has traditionally taken in responding to mental illness. Instead of housing the mentally ill in jails, prisons, and institutions, as the government has historically done, clubhouses provide people with the human dignity of remaining grounded and connected to their own communities.

Clubhouses are local organizations that allow people living with mental illness to remain in the community, rather than being involuntarily exiled to institutions. or worse, prisons – Y must be expanded to meet the growing demand for services and support.

The clubhouse model offers a comprehensive support system that connects members to free resources that build long-term independence, such as job training and housing support, and empowers members to make the decisions that will affect their care and Recovery. At a time when mental illness has been sensationalized by the mediaand the only solution that legislators seem to find is forced treatmentFountain House Bronx has shown that we can engage people prior to they are in crisis while dramatically improving outcomes and saving taxpayers millions in the process.

By creating a safe space for people with mental illness, Fountain House Bronx has succeeded in helping those whose lives have historically been shattered by a system more concerned with criminalizing than caring for the vulnerable.

Torres represents the South Bronx in the United States House of Representatives. Sooknanan is a community mental health advocate and member of Fountain House Bronx, who is also a member of the Fountain House board of directors.