Helping mentally ill from ‘going off their meds’ gets funding approval

Spend enough time downtown and eventually you’ll see someone walking down the street arguing with themselves, or perhaps with an imaginary person.

Medications to stabilize the more severe forms of mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and others, can be costly. Often patients either don’t have the financial resources to maintain their prescriptions or lack the motivation to do so due to their illness. The city of Bradenton spends more than $10,000 a year to help combat that problem by using a portion of their Community Development Block Grant funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs.

The city receives about $389,000 a year in CDBG funding that is designated for programs to help low-to-moderate income residents, such as code enforcement and the demolition of dilapidated structures.

Of that, Turning Point received $10,000 for prescription assistance, as well as $23,500 for emergency housing assistance. Turning Points Executive Director Adell Erozer did not immediately return a call for comment.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, up to 25 percent of the homeless population suffers from severe mental illness and is the third highest cause of homelessness.

In Bradenton, officials estimate there are about 500 homeless people.

City officials don’t have a problem contributing the funds, but Ward 4 Councilman Bemis Smith questioned how prescription assistance fit into the CDBG funding requirements.

“It seems to be unusual for CDBG,” Smith said. “It’s administered by HUD and is mostly oriented toward housing or improving neighborhoods. How do we justify a prescription assistance program? How does it help improve development or redevelopment activities in the community?”

Vicki White, the city’s housing and community development manager, said 70 percent of CDBG funding is required to put toward benefiting low-to-moderate income residents and the program is part of helping the homeless population.

Vice Mayor Patrick Roff said it’s much more than that when addressing prescription assistance for the homeless suffering from mental illness.

“Having a ward that deals with chronic homelessness, the police, who are very compassionate when handling the homeless, know these individuals by name and know when they are off their meds,” Roff said. “An example is one lady who when we can keep her on her meds, she’s a wonderful human being, but when she stops taking them, it becomes an issue. If we are putting money toward that and keeping them from slipping back into their issues, it betters them and the community.”

Smith didn’t disagree with the concept, but wasn’t completely convinced CDBG funding was appropriate, calling it a “slippery slope.”

City staff and officials will review the program when 2018 funding becomes available.

This story was originally published December 19, 2017 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Helping mentally ill from ‘going off their meds’ gets funding approval."