Real reform overdue at your public library

Urban public libraries across America are experiencing the inevitable consequences of a mental health system that is broken. There are more than 200,000 people in our nation today who are homeless and have a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. On cold days, many of these people will seek shelter at the local public library.

At Ekstrom library on the University of Louisville campus, students compete with the homeless to get on computers. As one student observes, “If the homeless are using property reserved for paying U of L students, then something needs to be done about it.” However, according to library staff, unless the homeless person is causing a disturbance, they are usually left alone.

Chip Ward described the disturbing conditions at the Salt Lake City public library in his poignant op-ed last year.

“People mumbling to themselves, shouting obscenities, and poking nails into celebrity pictures are just some of the problems encountered. Ward observed, “Like every urban library in the nation, the City Library, as it is called, is a de facto daytime shelter for the city's "homeless."

“Homeless” is indeed a misleading term because it clearly focuses on the wrong problem. Most people who remain on our streets over a long period of time do so not because they lack the means to find housing. Rather, up to 70 percent of the homeless are struggling with a serious mental illness, and for them providing housing without treatment is pointless. Remember Nathaniel in California?

Sadly, the general contempt for those who are homeless will only grow as our system continues to ignore the underlying problem. The real solution to this problem will not be found in new library policies. It will be found when our mental health system assumes responsibility to care for people who have mental illnesses so severe they don’t understand they are sick.

Tragic endings to a bad situation

Over the weekend we were reminded again of the role law enforcement is forced to play in dealing with severe mental illness. The failure of the mental health community to properly treat those with severe illnesses so often ends in tragedy across the country.

In Florida –
A sheriff’s deputy in Indian River County shot and killed Byruss Green, a man with a mental illness who had not been taking his medication.

In Illinois –
A jury determined that officers were not to blame in the March 2000 shooting of Joseph T. Zagar that had been called a suicide-by-cop. Officers had been to the home of Zager multiple times and had taken him in for mental health treatment. This time, Zager was threatening the officers with what they thought was a gun.

In Kentucky –
Brenda Joy Woosley, a woman with a mental illness had been driving erratically and avoiding police attempts to pull her over. Two officers fatally shot her after she drove her car into them.

In New York –
A man with a mental illness in Brooklyn was fatally shot by police officers after he repeatedly charged at them with a broken bottle. Before charging the officers, Dragan Kostovski stabbed his roommate.

Killing yourself with a cop's gun

Weak treatment laws often require a person to be a danger to themselves or others before getting involuntary treatment. As we often lament on this blog, this keeps the mental health community from intervening because the person is not yet dangerous, and forces law enforcement to become involved when a person finally deteriorates to that condition.

Occasionally, these encounters with law enforcement become “suicide by cop.”

According to family members, that was the case on Monday when Guy Ray III held four women hostage in a Louisville, Kentucky bank. After releasing the hostages, Ray emerged from the bank waving what turned out to be an air rifle at officers. Ray died of multiple gunshot wounds.

According to his sister Ray had been on and off medication for his mental illness that he had struggled with most of his life.

Guy Ray III left police no choice but to shoot him when he came out of a bank Monday and threatened them with a firearm.

“[He] was there to make it happen. He had a goal. He was going to force them to shoot him."

Twisted justice in Kentucky

No question Jacob K. Robling needed help. He was keeping the severed head of the family cat under his bed.

And no question his family was not setting out to have him arrested on animal cruelty charges.

Yet that is what happened.

Robling's stepfather said in an interview on Thursday that he and his wife never intended for Robling to end up in jail when they called police to report they'd found Clarabelle's remains. Gene Willis said he just wanted police to take their son to a hospital.