County Chair Ted Wheeler has accepted an invitation by mental
health activists to attend a public meeting to discuss his apparent
failure, so far, to prioritize a sub-acute facility for the mentally
ill in Portland.
Wheeler told the Mercury at the end of last month he might
not secure funding for such a facility—where police officers
could take people in mental health crisis instead of jail—until
2010. November 2008 is the very earliest he could secure funding,
Wheeler said.
Nevertheless, on October 4, Wheeler voted against a proposal by
County Commissioner Lisa Naito to fund such a center by diverting $4
million of county subsidies from Gresham [“Less Than a Crisis?” News,
Nov 1].
Reopening a sub-acute facility—Portland has been missing its
crisis triage center since 2003—was a key priority of Mayor Tom
Potter’s Mental Health/Public Safety Initiative formed last fall,
following the death in police custody last September of the 42-year-old
schizophrenic, James Chasse Jr.
Portland Mental Health Association President Roy Silberstein wrote
to Wheeler last Friday, November 16, inviting him to hold a public
meeting to explain his “plans to make the opening of a sub-acute
facility a high priority.”
“Since the closure of the Crisis Triage Center in 2003,” Silberstein
wrote, “people with mental illness, their friends and family members,
mental health clinicians, first responders, and a variety of others
have experienced or witnessed a high number of bad outcomes which could
have been avoided had a psychiatric sub-acute facility been an
option.”
Wheeler’s office agreed to the meeting this Tuesday, November
20—to take place on January 17, 2008, at 6 pm.
“I think it’s very encouraging that they want to meet their
constituents to talk about their decisions,” says Jason Renaud of the
Mental Health Association. Wheeler himself did not return the
Mercury‘s call by press time, but a spokesman confirmed the
meeting will take place.