Advocates, former patients demand that Lightfoot honor campaign promise to reopen 6 shuttered mental health centers

Chicagoans suffering from mental health issues and their community advocates demanded Tuesday that Mayor Lori Lightfoot honor her campaign promise to reopen six mental health centers famously closed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Lightfoot promised to reopen the six city centers, but her 2020 budget keeps them closed. A seventh center, privatized under Emanuel, would remain so.

Instead, the mayor has earmarked $9.3 million to increase capacity at the five remaining city clinics and support “20 trauma-informed centers of care” in “areas of greatest need’ impacted by violence and poverty.

The plan includes “outreach teams to support people who have trouble accessing mental health care at brick and mortar clinics” — people who instead “cycle through” hospital emergency rooms, according to Dr. Allison Arwady, the city’s acting health commissioner.

Lightfoot’s plan isn’t good enough for Estela Diaz, who has struggled with depression and panic attacks since childhood.

At a City Hall news conference Tuesday, Diaz said she attempted suicide during a lengthy wait for a private clinic appointment — where she was given short shrift.

“That’s ridiculous. I am 40 years old. How can I explain my life in 20 minutes once-a-week?” Diaz said.

“We really need all the budget to reopen the clinics — not to be for privatization. Because 20 minutes is not enough when I’m sitting there trying to explain how I feel.”

Diane Adams, a board member of Southside Together Organizing for Power, was treated for mental health issues at the city’s Auburn-Gresham clinic.

Adams agreed private clinics are “not the answer.”

“When you go to privatization, they’re gonna give you 15 or 20 minutes. They’re gonna look at their watch. ... They’re not gonna try to help you. They’re gonna give you your next appointment and a prescription,” Adams said.

“You can walk into these [city] clinics and get service the same day. Privatization, you’re gonna be on a waiting list.”

She added, “Mayor, you said … you was gonna open the clinics. ... You find money for the police academy. I know you can find some money for mental health.”

After a long day on the hot seat at City Council budget hearings, Arwady said she believes she has made the case for “new strategies that go beyond the clinics.”

“It’s about outreach. It’s about what are we doing to bring mental health services out of clinics to people with mental health problems that may not be on medication, that are never gonna walk through the doors of a brick-and-mortar clinic,” said Arwady.

Sun-Times file

Arwady remains acting commissioner because City Council confirmation of her appointment was held up last month by aldermen demanding reopening of the shuttered clinics.

“Right now, the Chicago Police Department [and] the Chicago Fire Department may be bringing these folks in. They’re coming to emergency departments. Most of the time, a few hours later, they’re back out on the street. There are better ways to do this,” she said.

Arwady acknowledged there are “absolutely places in Chicago today that are reporting long wait lists, especially for things like psychiatry.” But, she also noted a major disconnect: the five remaining city clinics have no wait lists at all, yet there are 178,000 people in Chicago who say they needed mental health care over the last year, but didn’t get it.

“If they’re reporting wait lists, that’s exactly who we want to help support with public funding to bring those wait lists down,” the commissioner said.

Last month, Lightfoot told the Sun-Times editorial board she would love to reopen the clinics, but the city can’t afford it.

“We had an $838 million deficit. We’re not gonna be able to fund everything to the full amount that we would want to. To fund at the level that some are asking for would mean that we would absolutely have to raise property taxes,” Lightfoot said then.

In a statement released by the mayor’s office Tuesday, Lightfoot argued her $9.3 million plan will “build equity and transform mental health care by investing in and supporting a comprehensive system of care that prioritizes the people and communities most in need.”