Letter to the Editor:
Mendocino County receives $27 million dollars annually to provide Mental Health Services. With passage of Measures AG and AH, this money will be spent in our county instead of being sent to other counties. The money will be spent on services in our own Psychiatric Health Facility, Crisis Residential Treatment Center and Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. The money will pay for services provided by people who live here.
We want excellent integrated treatment that includes both medical and complementary. This combination can be a magnet for mental health professionals to want to work here. We want Mendocino College to offer the Psych Tech Program that will provide workers we need now and in the future.
Measures AG and AH will provide the facilities for Mental Health Services that will be paid for with the $27 million dollars of state and federal money we receive each year. Right now, much of that money is sent to other counties for inadequate services and some of it seems to just disappear into County coffers named Special, Reserve, Contingency and more. Having the Mental Health Facilities we need with the 11-member Oversight Committee scrutinizing expenditures, will help stop the current bleed of millions of dollars of mental health patient money.
-Sonya Nesch
Nesch, an author, writes advocating for someone with a mental illness.
