Last month, Civil Beat published a Community Voice that called for the governor to veto the passage of Senate Bill 1322, which facilitates helping persons who are incapacitated by their mental illness or substance use to receive the treatment for which they have a right to access.
The author rightly cited the unfair stigmatization of persons with mental illness as being violent and should therefore be locked up or locked away.
While I fully agree with that particular statement, I am perplexed by the author calling for less detention of those with mental illness. In fact, the current statute guiding the MH10 (assisted community treatment) is meant to do exactly that: to reduce the need for hospitalization and institutionalization of persons for treatment and promotes treatment in the community.
Current law supports a legal process that requires petitioners to present sufficient evidence to convince a judge that the subject of the petition is better served by the delivery of treatment, including medication rather than being left on the street. If left untreated, they pose a danger to others or themselves through sheer neglect or lack of capacity for sound decision-making.
‘Heartbreaking’ Crisis
My perspective has been shaped by 15 years of working with mentally ill persons, both inpatient and in the community, in urban and rural settings alike, in addition to 19 years of serving homeless persons, many with mental illness. The people that outreach providers have encountered on the streets of Honolulu move me to tears…