TYP meeting discusses mental health

The amount of courage it must take for Sheryl McCormick to stand up in front of an audience, as she did at a public meeting last week, and discuss her own personal battle with homelessness and mental illness is almost unfathomable.

But she does it proudly, because hers is a story with a great ending, a happy ending, an ending that the supporters of the Joint City-County Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness (TYP) believe will be repeated many times over in Knoxville and Knox County in years to come.

Once homeless, with a variety of mental illnesses, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the latter resulting from her experiences on the streets, McCormick is now a staff member at Peninsula Hospital, working as the recovery training services and mental health advocate.

Having been on the streets herself, she now trains others to work with those among the homeless population who have mental illnesses – about 27 percent. It’s a perfect match.

And she was the ideal choice for last week’s TYP meeting about mental health issues among the homeless population, part of the project’s continuing series of “public conversations,” designed to explain the workings of the plan to the public at large.

Mary Thom Adams, of Positively Living/Parkridge Harbor, which offers permanent supportive housing to 24 formerly chronically homeless persons, moderated the meeting.

An energetic advocate for her cause, particularly for the “housing first” approach to the treatment of mental health issues among the homeless, McCormick outlined the many services available for mentally ill persons in Knox County, ranging from immediate services in emergency situations to long-term care, and explained the ways in which care is provided to those who achieve permanent supportive housing.

In brief, treatment for mental illness is not usually provided by the on-site case managers. Rather, case managers link residents to the appropriate providers, transportation is provided, and the taking of medication and other treatment is supervised.

McCormick told her audience, “Case management involves getting people to the right help at the right time. It is linking people to services in the community.”

Every mental illness is treatable, McCormick said, but less than 1/3 of adults with mental illnesses actually receive treatment, for a variety of reasons, including denial on the part of the mentally ill person that something is wrong with them, and the social stigma often associated with mental illness.

Once someone who has been chronically homeless is stabilized in housing, McCormick said, treatment of mental illness works and is cost effective. “It is much more cost effective to taxpayers,” she said, “than chasing them all over town to emergency rooms and jails. Permanent supportive housing works.”

The next TYP public meeting will be from 6-7 p.m. at the Cansler Family Y on Jessamine Street and will address addiction treatment.

Contact: annehartsn@aol.com.