With a wide range of social services available to a growing transient population, South Tucson has become a refuge in recent years to the homeless and mentally ill. But it’s not as bad as you might think.
“South Tucson cares about its population,” says Nick Taras of the Primavera Foundation, “[The city] does whatever it can to have a better understanding of our mentally ill.”
Primavera caters primarily to the homeless population, offering shelter and employment assistance to those in need. According to Taras, however, between fifty and sixty percent of Primavera’s clientele may report mental health or substance abuse issues.
“People with mental illness require as much support as possible from the community to succeed,” Taras says.
The South Tucson Police Department provides its officers with annual training in handling the mentally ill, and often refers such individuals to places such as the Southern Arizona Mental Health Crisis Center, La Frontera and other organizations for help.
Police officers sometimes recognize someone as being potentially unbalanced, and have adopted their own procedures for helping them.
“If they aren’t a threat to themselves or others, we’ll have them evaluated, give them a hot meal, a place to sleep, and get them services,” said Lt. Jeff Inorio of the South Tucson Police Department.
According to Karen Chatfield, the Director at La Frontera Center, approximately 10,000 adults and 4000 minors seek help from La Frontera each year for mental health services. Some of these are court-referred, some are self-referred and minors are referred to the organization by their schools. La Frontera provides these people with a wide array of services, including out-patient counseling, case-management, and residential treatment services.
“There’s a lot of collaboration in our mental heath system, and we work together to make sure people get the help they need,” Chatfield said. “It’s very rewarding work,” We’re provided an opportunity to make a difference in peoples’ lives. That’s what it’s all about.”
Helping hasn’t been so easy this year, however. As of 2011, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) saw a $2.5 billion cut to behavioral health coverage and other services, with benefits for respite care reduced by fifteen percent this October in response to the ongoing economic recession.
“Because of cutbacks, there’s less money in the system,” said Josefina Ahumada of the Arizona State University School of Social Work. Ahumada has worked for 24 years in the field of mental health, and coordinates internships in Tucson and Southern Arizona.
“Sometimes people use the emergency room for services, knowing that they can’t be turned away. Sometimes the working poor go without care at all. Sometimes, Spanish-speaking people are motivated and seek mental healthcare, but may not be able to find a professional who speaks their language.”
In August, a new Behavioral Health Pavilion was opened on the University of Arizona campus, providing a Crisis Response Center to provide these services, and to teach behavioral healthcare to college students. To Ahumada, the new Pavilion is a welcome relief to a growing issue.
The homeless or working poor aren’t the only people in crisis. Tucson’s returning veterans sometimes have mental health issues that can’t be handled alone, often in the form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“When people are traumatized, it effects their thinking as well as their physiology,” said Mike Marks, a psychologist with the Southern Arizona VA Health Care system, and an expert on the subject of PTSD. “Therapy can be painful, and some of the hardest work that victims will ever do.”
Behaviors and attitudes that veterans adopted in combat zones abroad can cause stress when they return home, according to Marks. Sometimes this can be the result of hypervigilance, a light-sleeping routine or survivor’s guilt. PTSD can effect a person’s ability to concentrate on the job or in school. It can make sufferers come into conflict with others; or feel alienated, isolated and effect their ability to function.
“There’s also this societal notion that veterans are going to be the same person as when they left,” said Marks. “That’s just not the case, and those expectations may lead to even more stress. And unfortunately, today’s veterans are coming back to a poor economy. Those kinds of economic realities only contribute to [PTSD].
Marks, however, is supportive of the community’s efforts to treat PTSD and psychological disorders of its citizens. “In Tucson, we have programs that are national models for dealing with vets,” he said. These include theVeterans’ Court, the SERV Foundation and welcome home events organized for returning veterans.
“[In terms of behavioral health care] Tucson is head and shoulders above everyone else.”
