For more than two decades, I watched Colusa County citizens participate in activities intended to reduce the public’s misconception and misinformation about the behavioral health needs of people in our communities.
It was long thought that if we recognize the prevalence of mental health disorders and reeducate ourselves and others on the truths of mental illness, substance use, and mental disabilities, we could then reduce the stigma that so often keeps people in isolation and away from treatment.
Once again, I find myself baffled by the Colusa County Board of Supervisors’ propaganda efforts that entirely missed the opportunity for local officials to transform guarded whispers about mental illness and homelessness into more meaningful conversations.
I’m talking about the County’s recent taxpayer-subsidized social media blog about the 49-unit apartment complex to be built on Highway 20 between the shopping center and the Assembly of God Church in Colusa.
There is nothing outrageously incorrect about the overly-wordy article that was carefully crafted by the county’s contracted wordsmith. If anything, it probably just left people scratching their heads why an apartment complex for “working” people, which was emphasized four times and then repeated in a prepared quote for the Chairman of the Board, would actually need a 3,000 square-foot community center for onsite mental health services. Having to work isn’t always fun, but it’s something most people don’t get too depressed about or seek treatment for. I’ve been doing it for years. Hard work builds character, allows one to be less dependent on others, and promotes happiness, or so they say.
The problem with the blog is that “State” news is written through a prism of self-preservation, and almost always escalates in the months leading up to election when government bureaucrats want the voting public to toe the line at the ballot box.
Government propaganda is not to inform the public about the decisions being made; government propaganda is to shape the public’s opinion of the decisions being made.
I suspect the only reason the County’s contracted propagandist is writing about the housing development now, two months after the Board’s decision to invest $1.5 million in mental health funding in the project (as leverage for a very competitive “No Place Like Home” grant), is probably to just get ahead of – or quell – the recent whisperings of the country-club set about the addition of another apartment complex to what they refer to as “low-income row.”
But by painting a picture of the project with such a broad and misleading brush that only smiling, happy, working families will live there, the County only marginalize further the people “No Place Like Home” is supposed to help: those who are experiencing homelessness, chronic homelessness, or who are at risk of chronic homelessness – and are in need of mental health services.
The one, two, and three bedroom apartments, as reported by the Pioneer Review in December, are a Regional Housing Authority project that could provide affordable permanent housing to income-eligible individuals and families, especially those who are currently living in motels or RVs, doubled or tripled up with other families, or living in substandard conditions.
Another 15 units, according to “No Place Like Home” guidelines, will be for vulnerable individuals with special needs that puts them at a greater risk for chronic homelessness, such as mental illness or having a severely mentally disabled child to care for.
If County officials are uncomfortable talking about whom the “vulnerable” people are in this community, then they are not capable of acquiring the public’s support or “buy in” on solutions to homelessness or mental health issues that require the public’s money.
Perhaps it’s hard for people not facing housing insecurity – whether from good fortune, good health, or good choices – to understand just how easily people end up living on the street or couch-surfing their friends or family.
In a state where rents and home prices have increased at twice the national average over the past 10 years, the demand for housing simply exceeds the available supply. For a non-elderly adult with a mental or physical disability, their approximate $12,000 annual supplemental security income is barely above the going rate of rent in California for a dilapidated camp trailer in someone’s backyard.
For people living paycheck-to-paycheck to raise a family, even the slightest increase in rent – or inflation on goods and services – is enough to unravel a teetering existence. Tack on a life-altering event and gone are four walls and a roof, along with any chance during a critical housing shortage to find another place to live: a reduction in income; the onset of a mental or physical disability; the death of a spouse or divorce; the loss of a wage-earner to stay home with a disabled family member; the change in land use or property ownership (resulting in eviction); the spiraling of a wage-earning member of the family into addiction; exiting the military, prison, or drug rehab with job prospects…but no place to live; aging out of the foster care system with nowhere to land but the environment from which they were removed.
Building apartments and houses for all needs and incomes is a good thing. It benefits society and supports our communities by giving people access to local stores, services, job training and education, medical care, recreational activities, and churches of their choice.
Only when the housing supply meets or exceeds the demand, will the cost to build, buy, or rent a place to live begin to level off for everyone…in all walks of life.
But asking the “vulnerable” people to stand in the back when it comes time for county bureaucrats, who make six-figure salaries and have lifetime benefits, to cut a red ribbon on this project to post on Facebook only adds to the stigma and discrimination that people living with mental health issues are trying to overcome.
Put them front and center and announce proudly who you’re trying to help. There should be no shame in anyone wanting or needing a place to call home. ■