Hospital: Cities other than Tacoma must step up

Re: “Tacoma Council botches Signature psychiatric hospital vote,” (TNT, 12/22).

I usually agree with columnist Matt Driscoll, but this time he missed the mark with his complaint about the Tacoma City Council refusing another psychiatric hospital. I applaud Keith Blocker and the rest of the City Council.

First, the city has enough treatment facilities for its mentally ill and its drug addicted. It is working on solutions for its homeless. When those kinds of facilities were needed over the past 50 years, Tacoma was always the first city with its hand up. The problem is that Tacoma was the only one.

Driscoll ignores another problem: how those who live outside Tacoma are affected when they have to travel here to receive any treatment. It is unfair to them; it means that many simply cannot get treatment or help.

The fact is, if Tacoma continues to site every kind of facility, it enables other cities to ignore their own residents and makes the problem worse. I suggest the city offer to help create treatment facilities outside of Tacoma in partnership with other cities.

This story was originally published January 3, 2020 at 3:32 PM with the headline "Hospital: Cities other than Tacoma must step up."