American Enterprise Institute on Mental Health Policy and poverty

How our mental health policy fails the poor

Mental illness dominates discussions about mass shootings. Far more prevalent is its connection with poverty. One-third of the nation’s homeless are the untreated mentally ill. One in five people in jail or prison has a severe mental illness.

In an important new paper, AEI’s Sally Satel argues that our nation’s failure in mental health policy is a classic case of good intentions gone bad. Policy responded to maltreatment in state psychiatric facilities by effectively eliminating them. In 1955, our nation had 560,000 psychiatric beds. Today we have 35,000.

Read full report here.   

Banning books in Highland Park

Of course, the headline caught my eye:  Highland Park ISD suspends seven books after parents protest their content.

As I read on, the report really grabbed me. 

I mean, one of the  authors of one of the banned looks on the list spoke for CitySquare several years ago at a prayer breakfast!

Our guest speaker on that occasion, David Shipler, one of best ever, wrote the now classic and still bestselling, Working Poor: Invisible in America. 

Here's the quote from The Dallas Morning News regarding this particular book: 

"One of suspended books — The Working Poor: Invisible in America, written by Pulitzer Prize winner David K. Shipler — is about Americans in low-skilled jobs who struggle because of economic and personal obstacles. Some parents objected to the nonfiction book because it has a passage about a woman who was sexually abused as a child and later had an abortion."

While it is none of my business what these parents want for their children and while I'm not a taxpayer in the Highland Park ISD, I must say I find this action and concern, especially about Shipler's book, fairly surprising. 

Possibly, public demands like this one explain why we are making so little real progress on confronting, understanding and overcoming poverty in Dallas and across the nation. 

What do you think?

"Asset Poverty" on KERA

You can watch last night's "One Crisis Away" program on KERA TV-13 right here!