Missouri’s mental health crisis is a public safety issue. It’s about people | Opinion
Memorial Day weekend should have been filled with family gatherings and community celebrations. Instead, the community I grew up in was forced to confront a heartbreaking tragedy when a woman was killed and a teenage grocery store employee was injured in a shooting at a grocery store in Pleasant Hill, just outside Kansas City.
According to court records, people who know the man charged in the attack have worried about his deteriorating mental state for years. As details continue to emerge, one question continues to echo across our communities: How many more tragedies must occur before mental health becomes a top priority for our elected officials, both in Washington, D.C., and here in Missouri?
For years, our nation has treated mental health as an afterthought. Meanwhile, families across America are living in fear, watching loved ones struggle with severe mental illness while navigating a broken system that often fails both those who are suffering and the communities around them.
This is not about politics. This is about people.
It is about families desperately seeking help for a loved one who is clearly in crisis but cannot get treatment. It is about recognizing that untreated severe mental illnesses can have devastating consequences, not only for the individual suffering, but for families, neighborhoods and innocent victims.
Mental illness is far more common than many realize. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than 1 in 5 American adults lives with a mental illness. Among those experiencing homelessness, the numbers are even more staggering. Recent national data shows that approximately 22% of the homeless population are battling a serious mental illness.
That means tens of thousands of people are living on our streets while battling conditions that often require consistent treatment, medication management, supportive housing and long-term care.
Yet too often, those services simply do not exist.
Over the past several decades, America dramatically reduced psychiatric hospital capacity with the intention of shifting care into community-based treatment programs. Unfortunately, mental health funding and infrastructure necessary to support that transition never fully materialized. The result is a system where many individuals cycle through homelessness, emergency rooms, jails and short-term interventions without receiving the long-term treatment they need.
I have witnessed this reality firsthand through my sister’s decadeslong battle with severe mental illness and addiction.
When individuals who pose a significant risk to themselves or others are released without adequate treatment, evaluation, supervision or housing, communities are left vulnerable.
We must be able to address two imperative topics: People living with mental illness deserve dignity, compassion, and access to treatment and housing. And society deserves protection when someone demonstrates violent behavior or presents a serious threat to public safety.
These ideas are not mutually exclusive. As a mental health advocate and author, I have seen both the devastation caused by untreated mental illness and the life-changing difference that treatment, intervention and supportive housing can make.
This issue should unite Republicans, Democrats, independents and every community leader in between. We need increased funding for psychiatric care, crisis intervention programs, supportive housing, long-term treatment facilities and community mental health resources. We need stronger systems that identify individuals in crisis before they become a danger to themselves or others.
Today, I am challenging Missouri’s leaders — from Gov. Mike Kehoe and state lawmakers to county executives, mayors and judges — to place mental health at the forefront of the public policy agenda. We need a comprehensive strategy that expands treatment beds, increases supportive housing, strengths crisis response systems and ensures that individuals suffering from severe mental illness do not continue to fall through the cracks. For too long, families have carried this burden alone. For too long, communities have paid the price of inaction. The time for studies and conversations has passed. The time for leadership is now.
Every tragedy leaves us searching for answers. The answer cannot continue to be inaction.
Tricia Jacobson is a Kansas City author, speaker, real estate professional and founder of 816 Loved, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to empowering disadvantaged teen girls. She is the author of the memoir “Praying for Clean: A Memoir of Sisterhood, Substance Abuse, and Second Chances.”