Fewer Reports, More Action

The following is the Op/Ed piece written by Joseph A. Rogers, executive director of MHASP, that appeared in the December 16 Philadelphia Inquirer in response to the U.S. Surgeon General's first-ever report on mental health.

In more than 20 years as an organizer and an advocate, I've repeatedly noticed that when the federal government doesn't want to spend money or, more particularly, raise taxes, it issues reports.

I remember a time about 10 years ago when homelessness was seen as a crisis in our country. I went to literally dozens of meetings in Washington in which various government agencies competed in issuing reports that described the problems of the homeless in great detail, showed real understanding about the issues and articulated wonderful solutions. Now, you can come into my office and see these reports stacked on shelves, gathering dust. I once even used one of these reports to prop up a bed. The frame broke, and close at hand was a beautiful, comprehensive and (most important) thick report, which I think was put out by the National Institute of Mental Health. I grabbed it.

But while it did a wonderful job of propping up the bed, today there are still homeless people living on the streets. So now we have the first-ever report on mental health from the U.S. Surgeon General's office, issued in the waning days of an administration that is not in a position to be able to do much about it.

As an advocate, I'm concerned that what we've gained is something that is very nice and thick, but useful mostly for propping up broken furniture.

I'm not saying that the Surgeon General shouldn't be applauded for taking on such a large task and for making a statement about the need to address the problems of mental illness. The report, and what it has to say about how we must do away with the "disparities in the availability of and access to [mental health] services," has validity to just about anyone involved in this enormous, diversified field.

But the report is just that, a report. It does not contain a plan for action or propose a way of doing the things it says ought to be done. And that just reinforces my belief that it is up to us as activists and citizens who care about this issue to move the report's message on down the road. We must make sure that people with mental illnesses are able to get the services they need, free from force or coercion, regardless of income and without being stigmatized.

The question is how we do all that.

At the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and at our affiliate organization, the National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse, we believe there is only one way to assure real change.

That is to see that people like me who actually use mental health services (these people are known as "consumers" in the mental health field) get involved in the same kind of mass citizen action that has led to real changes in other areas of social concern.

Only when people who have a mental illness, speaking with a passion fostered by their own struggles, band together to demand change will policymakers listen and respond.

An analogy would be the civil rights experience in the South. Real change took place only when African Americans and others in the South became angry enough to take to the streets and demand full civil rights for citizens of all races.

Until then, no matter how many progressive, enlightened and mostly white people spoke out about the injustices blacks were suffering, there had been no real change.

We took a step toward that type of mobilization last summer, when the Clearinghouse hosted a national summit in Oregon. More than 400 consumers from around the country, some of whom have been involved in the consumer movement for as long as 30 years, met for three days to talk about issues that affect people with mental illnesses.

The current presidential election offers us another opportunity to be heard.

Only Vice President Al Gore has clearly supported destigmatizing mental illness. But while we are grateful to Gore and his wife, Tipper, for the way they have helped to put mental illness on the national agenda, the mental health advocacy community cannot allow itself to get caught up in ownership by any one campaign.

Instead, we should take the Surgeon General's report and our concerns about the civil rights of people with mental illnesses to candidates Bill Bradley, John McCain, George W. Bush, and the others, and demand to know where they stand.

If consumers can mobilize in this way, in the years to come this may just be one report that is not found collecting dust while supporting broken furniture.