How to help people with mental illness who refuse care? Sen. O’Ban has a plan

Michael and Carol Berry have watched in despair as their son has fallen into the cycle of mental illness, treatment that doesn’t last long, homelessness, and then jail.

The Tacoma couple hope that the Legislature will approve a bill to help them get their 38-year-old son, Michael, back.

In emotional testimony on Friday to state lawmakers, Carol Berry recounted how her son landed in the Pierce County Jail last Thanksgiving on felony charges after being discharged from a mental health facility.

“A nurse told me he should not have been discharged at the time he was because he had some incidents in that facility. … He was discharged on a Friday. They put him in a clean and sober house. By Sunday, he was being evicted from it and kicked out because of his mental health,” she said.

Carol Berry said her son then got a motel room. Pierce County crisis team workers checked on him and said they’d follow up, but he left the motel. She said she couldn’t locate her son for three days.

“When I called the jail, they said that he was there. At least he’s off the streets. He’s been beat up. He’s been abused on the streets. He has caused chaos on the streets because he doesn’t feel like he has a problem. It’s everybody else,” she said. “I have begged, pleaded, talked to everybody ... saying he is not capable of handling himself,” she said.

SB 6109 would allow courts to assign a special guardian — such as a family member — to make care decisions for people whose mental illness makes them incapable of recognizing their need for help, said the sponsor, state Sen. Steve O’Ban, R-University Place.

If approved during the Legislative session that ends March 12, the bill would create a pilot guardian program in Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties. It is based on a program in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

“We have no effective response to save this population,” O’Ban said. “Jail isn’t the solution. Involuntary in-patient treatment is no answer. The cycle must end of refusing treatment, followed by hospitalization or jail, followed by refusal of treatment, followed by hospitalization and jail.”

Courts could assign a special guardian if an individual has been referred for involuntary commitment at least five times within a 12-month period. To use the program, local governments would have to determine that there is housing and other services for those who are assigned a special guardian, O’Ban said.

“We are losing hundreds, probably thousands, of our young people. They are sons and daughters and they could live lives of dignity, of creativity, and of service. The enormous waste of human potential is tragic,” he said.

Jerri Clark’s son, Calvin, died last year of suicide at the age of 23. He had been diagnosed with a severe form of bipolar disorder and also suffered from anosognosia, the inability to recognize one’s own mental illness.

“He was cycling in and out of hospitals and ultimately jails and homeless shelters. He was forced into the margins of society by a system that not only refuses to help, but actually requires violence and destitution before help of any sort is available at all,” said Clark, who lives in the Vancouver area.

Clark said her son slept in ditches, moved in and out of homeless shelters and ineffective involuntary hospitalizations, attempted suicide multiple times and received little help.

“This bill is a baby step in the right direction, but it’s something,” said Clark, the founder and director of a nonprofit group, Mothers for the Mentally Ill.

The behavioral health system either requires an individual with mental illness to try to manage it on their own or provides meaningful treatment if that individual has made multiple suicide attempts or commits violent crimes, she said.

“So we have two extremes. Either you can voluntarily seek the help that you need or you are so dangerous to society that `we are going to force you into our model of care.’ We don’t have anything in the middle,” she said.

If SB 6109 becomes law, data collected during the pilot program could be used to expand it and help fill that gap in the behavioral health system, Clark said.

Steve Strachan, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs, expressed support for the bill.

“This will increase the safety of the public. It will increase the safety of law enforcement, and very importantly, it will increase the safety” of those with mental illness, he said.

Michael and Carol Berry said they don’t know how their only child, Michael, who they said has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, will escape the cycle of mental illness, sporadic treatment, living in motels for up to a week until his Social Security disability benefits run out, homelessness, and jail.

Michael Berry said when his son is released from treatment, he loses access to psychiatric medications.

“Then he starts out medicating with street drugs and you’re right back to square one and everything has to start over again. It costs the state a ton of money and it’s not working,” he said. “The sad part of this is if you can get him in a clean and sober environment, this kid is so talented art-wise. He can take a pencil and do amazing drawings.”

“He may be left on the street to die,” his mother, Carol Berry, said.

This story was originally published February 1, 2020 at 5:45 AM.