Waiting for mental health funding sure can cause anxiety

Two days before the fatal shootings at Northern Illinois University, our state's mental health advocates urged the state to release money to extend mental health services to nearly 17,000 people -- including young people struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts and substance abuse.

We are still waiting.

And it's not as if we can drag our feet. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill gave Illinois a grade of F when it comes to treating people with serious mental illnesses.

"If Illinois is to improve, the state needs to spend its unspent mental health care dollars on mental health," Frank Anselmo, CEO of the Community Behavioral Health Care Association said then.

He's still saying it.

"Our concern is the same, or growing," Anselmo said Friday. He says Illinois has $59.1 million earmarked for mental health. Those funds come from the state's mental health trust fund and money received through the federal government's hospital tax assessment. It's just that in these tight-budget times, the money hasn't been doled out, and local officials fear it could be swept into the general budget.

Meanwhile, the need for that money grows.

"We are serving 77 percent more people than we were in 2001," says Karen Beyer, executive director of the Ecker Center for Mental Health in Elgin. "Our funding increase during that time period has been 42 percent."

The suburbs are home to more people, more poor people, and more people without health insurance -- especially as the economy grapples with recession.

"Eighty-four percent of people we see live at the poverty level or below," Beyer says. "We are the last resort."

It's not just those who have lost jobs.

"A lot have moderate incomes, or working poor people who make just enough so they are not eligible for Medicaid, but they don't have insurance," says Denis Ferguson, executive director of Alexian Brothers Center for Mental Health in Arlington Heights.

"Now we're getting more and more kids who are on Medicaid or in working poor families that are uninsured," Ferguson says. "An outgrowth of the economy is that companies that may have given insurance don't anymore."

Higher deductibles make it difficult for some to get the help they need. Meanwhile, the mental health facilities freeze employees' pay, cut their budgets and treat more and more people.

"Our demand grows 10 to 13 percent a year," Ferguson says. He says his facility has a four-week wait to get a non-emergency appointment with a psychiatrist. He tells of another clinic that has a one-year wait for children needing mental health care.

Early intervention and good outreach programs in the community help people "recognize red flags for suicidal thoughts and behavior," Ferguson says. But when the money doesn't come, those programs get pushed aside for the more urgent needs.

"We are seeing people in the community now who are much sicker than we saw in 2001," Beyer notes.

No one wants to capitalize on tragedy. But the NIU shooting did bring attention to mental health care.

"People say, 'Oh, we should do something about it,' " Ferguson says. "And then we are back to cutting taxes and cutting programs."

Millions of dollars that could help thousands of suburbanites are in political limbo. The suburbs' mental health professionals wait.

"The dedication of the people who work here amazes me," Beyer says. "It's a difficult time, but I always have hope."