State Healthcare

This Is What Happens When a City Shuts Down Mental Health Clinics

Governing: The wait for mental health services at Saint Anthony Hospital, a nonprofit community institution on Chicago’s West Side, is about a year. The hospital sits on the border between North Lawndale, an African-American community, and Little Village, which is mostly Latino. It tries to offer culturally sensitive care to both constituencies, and it gives free mental health services to the uninsured. But it’s swamped.

Arturo Carrillo, the mental health program manager at Saint Anthony, says there’s been a near-constant waiting list since he started as an intern in 2005. The list is longer in 2018 than it’s ever been. This is despite a widespread belief that Hispanics and African-Americans are less likely than other groups to seek out mental health treatment because of a widely felt stigma against it.

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