Letter: Mental hospital is better than more homeless

Monday, Jan. 19, 2004 | 8:52 a.m.

If mentally ill people do not have access to medication they need to keep their illness under control, then we end up with homeless lost souls wandering our streets and neighborhoods. I am very much in favor of the new hospital and hope it is built with many more beds than the hospital we now have.

I don't know the exact numbers but there are many middle-income families where both adults are working full time and still can't afford health insurance. Where would they go in time of need? Where would they go in case they or a family member needed help for a mental illness? They would go to the state mental health facility.

It wouldn't bother me or my family to have the facility in our neighborhood. We would much rather have that than the homeless and lost people we see because of mental illness that is not being taken care of. It can happen to anyone at anytime; no one is immune to mental illness.

MARJIE CANNON