
For more than a week, a coalition of Chicago activists including patients and staff from the Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic, representatives from the Mental Health Movement, STOP Chicago, and Occupy Chicago have been protesting the closure of six mental health care facilities as part of austere city budget cuts. In order to save a reported $2.3 million, the city has already closed two neighborhood clinics, and plans to shut down an additional four. Officials argue that by shutting down these facilities, they will be able to restructure and provide more options for consumers and say they’ve invested $500,000 already in expanding services for psychiatric care and plan to increase access to services. Such measures are a kick to the guts of the people most in urgent need of mental health care. Those most wholly affected by this are poor, held hostage by not only their health needs but limited access to funding for care. Two patients from one of the closed clinics are currently in psychiatric hospitalization because they entered crisis after its closure, according to N’Dana Carter, an activist with Mental Health Movement.
Caregivers, patients and activists know that shutting down public neighborhood clinics will have disastrous effects on people receiving services. Mental well-being is essential to human health. Not one person in Chicago remains unaffected by mental health issues: depression, bipolar disorder, panic attacksm anxiety disorder, PTSD, schizophrenia, insomnia or hypersomnia, and anhedonia, among many others affect a huge portion of the population. Everyone has been heartbroken by the behavior of someone who needs mental health services. The availability of mental health care is an issue that crosses all class and race lines. It is a crucial human service. Mayor Rahm Emanuel seems to be determined, with little research or apparent forethought, to value NATO security funding, flowers in parks, and the 1% Lakefront Trail to Nowhere more than the well being of the very citizens who elected him to office.
Though the Mental Health Movement and their allies made hundreds of phone calls, delivered petitions signed with thousands of names and staged a sit-in at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office at City Hall until being removed, their words fell on deaf ears. With most other options exhausted, 23 doctors, nurses, mental health patients, medics, and Occupy Chicago members decided to barricade themselves inside one of the clinics slated for closure last week to force the city to listen to their demands. Hundreds gathered outside in solidarity to support them. Soon after Chicago Police arrested those inside, protesters set up an encampment outdoors across the street from the clinic in order to continue their fight. From Saturday, April 14 until the wee hours of Tuesday, April 17, the vacant lot was alive with music, dancing, children’s laughter, sidewalk murals, and educational sharing that created a greater sense of understanding, sharing, and community building in the long shadow of austerity. In the rain and high winds, campers remained in spirited involvement, dedicated to their cause.
In establishing a camp, there are always a million details to handle. Fortunately, the nature of the conflict binds people together for the greater good and cause. The sense of community and family was as real as the droplets of rain running down ponchos, the heat from the bonfire, and as real as the arms of activists wrapped around each other in joy. An amazing moment of realization comes when a tent goes up, when a stake is pounded into the fat black heart of a cold city run by a man who doesn’t care about his constituents, that there’s a better world. We can establish a parallel society where we take care of one another and people are valued more than securing a hegemonic guard dog system or tulips.
That feeling lasted at least, until 2:00 am on Tuesday morning, when Chicago police cleared the encampment and confiscated the tents belonging to demonstrators, threatening more arrests. Police presented a complaint from the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation, who claimed they owned the vacant lot the encampment was built on. After a search at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds Office, it was discovered that the WCDC does not in fact, own the land and the eviction was in fact, illegal. This did not stop police from clearing the camp however. Undeterred, protesters continued their demonstration on the sidewalk and slept in or on top of cars draped in their banners and signs. They say their fight will continue until their voices are heard and demands met. In a press release, Linda Hatcher, a patient of the clinic and one of the 23 arrested at the first action, said “We are not going to be turned around. This is a question of life and death for us and we will not give up the fight.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.