Ballot-Box Progress for the Mentally Ill

Re “For Mentally Ill, Ballot Box Budgeting Might Be the Answer,” by George Skelton, May 6: My brother and I grew up in Orange County. Our parents provided for all our basic needs. We always had a home to live in, clothes to wear, toys to play with and food in our stomachs. When my father passed away in 1991, my 8-year-old brother’s acting out started to look more like symptoms of bipolar disorder. Even under the care of the greatest child psychologists, and with the most advanced medications, our lives were difficult.

Currently I work at the Village Integrated Services Agency in Long Beach, where I provide work experience to adults with mental illness. Some of the people I work with have the same mental illness as my brother, but because they didn’t have the same care, they have been homeless, have turned to drugs, have lost their homes and families and have been completely disconnected from their communities. The November ballot initiative will make sure that all people are eligible for mental healthcare, whether they live in a middle-class, suburban neighborhood or on skid row.

Kate McCracken

Long Beach

I have never been one to vote for new taxes. However, as a person who works in one of the programs created by Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Darrell Steinberg’s (D-Sacramento) AB 34 program, I will definitely be voting for the mental health initiative to pass.

These are not “crazy people” or “nut jobs,” as many people call them. They are people the system forgot about, who have not had the chance to learn the necessary coping skills we take for granted. The funding this initiative has the potential to raise would dramatically improve the lives of thousands of people affected by serious mental illness.

Charlotte Tacy

Modesto