Someone Else Will Take Care of That

Homelessness is a major problem facing the United States and more importantly Travis County, partly because of the recession the war, but a major factor is mental health. Out of all fifty states Texas was 44th in per capita spending for health care and 47th in mental health care, as well as having the highest number of people without insurance in 2002. The Austin Chronicle released at least six articles about the mental health care system in the past ten years, sadly they all tell the same story, just with different names. The recent event that took place Tuesday evening on April 23, 2013, when Herbert Babelay was shot dead by four police officers in Southeast Austin, brought my attention to the issue that has been presiding in Texas for more than forty years.

The police were reporting to calls of a suicidal man and found Babelay, a 54-year-old male who had a history of mental illness, standing outside. The situation escalated quickly as Babelay got a shotgun from a shed nearby, all officers fired at the suspect. Jim Harrington, executive director of the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), reported that “no techniques were used to de-escalate the confrontation.” There has been other instances in recent years with humans with mental disabilities ending in tragedy. Reginald Demps, a 47-year-old male who had a history of schizophrenia, was complaining of hearing voices. His brother drove him to Austin State Hospital where he was turned away because a lack of beds. The following night Demps called the police reporting suicidal thoughts. He was taken to be evaluated the hospital saw no major signs of threat and was released. Shortly after being released Demps hung himself in the stairwell at a hotel in North Central Austin.  

This “Mental Meltdown” started when John F. Kennedy pushed for the deinstitutionalized the system for the treatment of the mentally ill. Unfortunately this new process had negatives effects on how we care for the population suffering from these mental diseases. Not place in Texas is failing in the treatment for these people, but Austin is definitely not leading the way. There is not a psychiatric center in Austin dedicated to assessing people in need of medical assistance. There are 63 beds for these types of patients in Travis County and 23 beds located at private facilities, where Tarrant County has over 270 beds. A majority of people are not provided the proper care, including medicine and follow up care. Deinstitutionalizing mental health care took away funding for the organizations providing service for these people, and as the funds dwindled so did the necessary care. When the funding of the mental care declined, there was an increase in funding for the criminal justice system. Now years later we have found ourselves in a pressing situation where police find it easier to take a person to jail, instead of getting people the help they need.

Steps have been taken to improve the flawed conditions in the mental health care system; Police officers have to go through training on dealing with the mentally disabled. However this does not make up for the lack of resources set aside for this issue. "A mentally healthy community treats all individuals with dignity and respect." We need to help every person as if they were our family or friends, these people out suffering and somebody needs to step up; the state and/ or local government, along with the people within the community. If we let this problem continue it will only get worse for all of us.