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I’ve previously posted about how the lack of access to healthcare and mental health services contribute to making a community unsafe. There were two projects at the Community Safety Fair that were directed towards solutions to the appalling lack of access to mental health counseling in the District. One proposed a series of wellness centers called M.A.R.C.H. 1/8
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MARCH stands for Metropolitan Area Recovery Calm House. The call is for the city to establish at least four centers, one in each of the four quadrants of the city. The idea is that the centers would provide a support system in a safe space for helping residents, particularly those re-entering to begin healing from the traumas they’ve experienced in life. At the moment all crisis beds are in one quadrant. 2/8
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The problem the advocates are attempting to address is the fact that DC has only 16 (!) community based crisis beds where people can stay for up to only two weeks to receive professional mental health services. To put that in perspective, DC has 700,000 residents. At the moment, if a person is experiencing a mental health crisis in the district they can either go to the hospital or to jail. 3/8
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We know where poor people go and its not to the hospital because again many lack access to health care insurance. This is a perfect example of the way multiple factors in poor communities of color interact to worsen safety. I shouldn’t have to tell you that jails and prisons are not equipped to deal with mental health issues. The ask is that the city fund the centers and allow local nonprofits to run them. 4/8
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The second booth was run by a sub group of the DC organization called HIPS. HIPS has been around for about 30 years. They have a “comprehensive program providing a variety of services, education and advocacy to sex workers, drug users and their communities.”They provide a non-judgmental place where sex workers can receive support services, particularly important for youth engaged in sex work. 5/8
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Under the HIPS advocacy banner there are three sub programs, one of which was Chosen Few/HIPS, who had a table at the community fair. Chosen Few’s table focused on the negative impact on Black communities due to law enforcement and DC’s Dept of Behavioral Health Services’ (DBH) responses to mental health crises. Eight in ten DC voters support 911 calls for mental health being diverted to health professionals. 6/8
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Yet, as of 2022, DBH still receives only a small fraction of the mental health crisis calls. Chosen Few’s proposal is that the District fund a community based peer-led team to respond to the mental health calls. They want eight vans dedicated for use by the teams AND have DBH train the teams so they will be properly certified. Info about Chosen Few/HIPS here: https://www.hips.org/chosen-few.html 7/8
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While I was at the fair someone was doing an interview. I heard the person say to the reporter: “Can you image how life in DC would be changed if all these programs were funded and up and running.” I stopped and looked around the room and thought YES! The community has the power and the ideas to make our lives better. But we don’t have the $. DC has the $ but too much of it is spent on the police. 8/8