I originally had hoped to get away for vacation this month
but as I was asked to be part of Alameda County ‘s adult planning group for the
Mental Health Services Act that would provide feedback to the county concerning
the proposals of the 4 adult planning groups-Housing and Homelessness, Emergency
Services and Underserved, Criminal Justice and Wellness and Recovery which was
meeting weekly. I also went to some of the meetings of these groups particularly
Housing and Homelessness and one for Emergency Services.
The state of California so far allocated $250,000 directly
to the city of Berkeley through our city mental health department and
$11,000,000 to the county of Alameda part of which would also service Berkeley
mental health clients requiring the city to file their plan jointly with the
county. Being the chairman of the Berkeley Mental Health Commission and an
advocate for the homeless through working with BOSS for those on the streets of
Berkeley and Oakland particularly and a peer counselor for the last 15 years at
the Berkeley Free Clinic and a member of the Alameda Network of Mental Health
Clients I felt it was important to present at these meetings giving the feedback
. I also spoke to the concerns expressed at the meetings of the Telegraph Area
Association’s Southside Partnership on Health and Homelessness.
On the streets of Berkeley one of my main focuses was
telling street people what is happening at these meetings and in the city’s
process. Also this month on the Berkeley Mental Health Commission agenda I was
able to get the issue of homeless people’s stuff being taken by the police, the
problems with the 2nd & University place where people’s stuff was
held and access to the stuff through the Berkeley Mental Health’s outreach team.
This continues to be a problem I get brought to my attention once or twice a
month and I have been for the last few months trying to get it formally
addressed at the Commission. I have had several discussions with Harvey Tureck,
the director of Berkeley Mental Health about this.
The latest problem with the situation is there has been a
big hole ripped out of the fence at 2nd & University so people who go
through the process of getting the outreach team to go with them down there
often find much of their stuff gone through and gone and others hearing this
don’t bother. I talked to him about how mental health clients who are trying to
keep on a regular schedule with taking their psychiatric medications hard enough
as it is on the streets are then deprived of their medication just when they are
under the very stressful situation of having their stuff taken. This could be
alleviated if the lockers were put in place at the Multi-Agency Services Center
but that still after all these months remains to be implemented. This along with
the problems the county is having sitting the detox center that make people on
the street feel quite discouraged with trying to go and speak out about what
they want. What is promised always seems to be in the wings and isn’t
materialized.
This is a frustration with conveying what is being talked
about under the Mental Health Services Act as well which will not actually
implemented for at least another year. There is a feeling that people like
myself are being paid to go to meetings and there is no tangible benefits coming
back to those on the streets. At the same time though there is an eagerness and
openness of many on the streets to talk about their own mental health issues and
their experiences with the mental health system both positive and negative. Some
do hope they do get help from the MHSA programs that will help the “hard core
homeless” (on the streets longer than a year) get into housing and get wrap
around services whether it is done by the county or Berkeley Mental Health , get
enrolled out of John George Psychiatric Pavilion, Santa Rita prison, the still
to open county detox/sobering station or from mobile crisis and other street
outreach. They are glad the state and the county are now addressing the issue of
many people who need mental health services winding up in the criminal justice
system instead.
There are some though who prefer Santa Rita to the county
mental health system with its involuntary hospitalization and other programs.
There are a number of people on the streets who do not want any of the services
being talked about or offered now, want to be left alone. It seems in the
political atmosphere that is clearly emerged of more state intervention into
their lives they are going to find in Berkeley that once again will become more
and more difficult. They feel talk about greater mental health consumer
involvement in the system may prove to be window dressing to force people to
take medication they don’t want and get into programs they don’t want and to cut
programs that offer them better choices now.
I am hopeful that the mental health services act makes
concrete improvements in people’s lives but with the linking more of information
gathering in homeless services with the federal government’s Homeland Security
through the new HUD (Housing and Urban Development) guidelines being implemented
many of the more politically aware on the streets are worried, depressed about
the prospects ahead. Many are hopeful, heard good things in the public forums
but many of those who participated in the planning process in the city of
Berkeley and the county of Alameda see a lot of the hoped for needs will not be
adequately funded and thus expectations raised will be unsatisfied once again.
Drugs, Alcohol, Police, UC and the
Free Box
The crackdown on alcohol and partying by University of
California students by the university banning drinking at frat house parties)
and by neighbors in the area south of People’s Park particularly the closing of
the Chateau and reopening with a whole new set of student tenants akin to what
happened to Barrington Hall, pressure on other student dealings) as well as the
closing down of the open performance night that was happening at the Café Med
where street musicians often performed with a police officer coming on quite
strongly were subjects of street conversation. In general much of the police
activity regarding those on the streets I have personally observed of late has
been around open containers and drugs including marijuana. I have often talked
about the double standard where blatant public drunkenness by students was
ignored while the homeless got a lot of special attention from the police
looking for drugs and alcohol.
This is occurring at time where there are laws more and
more restricting smoking cigarettes outside like near bus stops. In People’s
Park many of the homeless who use to hang out there avoid it because there is
organized drug trafficking there and to maintain this people are threatened with
or in actuality are subjected to violence. Many of the homeless miss the free
box in People’s Park because they need a place to get clothes and there is no
real alternative but many also are really feed up with a certain crew of folks
who took the best stuff to sell and to maintain control of that often made
verbal threats or actually in some cases did use violence.
Unfortunately with the loss of the free box now it is only
those who wait on the sidewalk who get the clothes and they wait so as to be
able to sell them. Park activists again have been meeting to discuss building a
new Free Box resuming discussions that stopped in April. They seem reluctant to
discuss the attendant problems around but certainly not limited to the Free Box
in People’s Park. I have seen a couple incidents on nonhomeless people coming to
buy marijuana and getting ripped off by a certain organized group of both black
and white homeless people.
Even though the UC park stuff claim things are more
peaceful without the Free Box and that homeless people tell them that Devin also
tells me there has been a lot of fighting there. The HateMan who is now sleeping
back in People’s Park says it is bad there. Neighbors once again are strongly
calling for a crackdown. I seem to be more and more the man in the middle who
can talk to all parties except the neighbors—though I would like to---who sees
both the problems but also the beauty and the times of community that happen
still in People’s Park.
The other topic that is being talked about on the streets
is the deal between the University and the city of Berkeley. Many feel all the
earlier talk we heard from the Berkeley General Plan all the talk from the mayor
about moving to Housing First policies will because of the pressure on the local
housing market put on the downtown Shattuck and Southside areas and even north
Berkeley will mean all that earlier talk of getting housing for the homeless
keeping the city affordable for the low income will just be talk.
With the Berkeley Emergency Food & Housing Project
discontinuing mail box services to many of the homeless people know even getting
their SSI check or voting will become more problematic. Even though the mayor is
now the head of the ABAG (Alliance of Bay Area Government) regional task force
on homelessness what homeless people are hearing is he wants other cities to
take on more of the responsibility that is he does not want them in Berkeley.
With little money coming directly to Berkeley under the Mental Health Services
Act and most Berkeley’s present state funded AB2034 formerly homeless mental
health clients being housed in Oakland it seems the trends may force more
homeless elsewhere due to harsh economic realities if the mayor does shut down
funding for shelters like he is told us at BOSS that he plans to do. But is
Oakland, Pittsburg and the more economically depressed suburbs ready for the
influx?
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