11/14/2021

My Friend & POTUS, JRB,

How are you doing these days? Is the polling news getting you down? Just remember, polling is a crude science, with problematic methodology that is less & less reliable. Moreover, we are fickle people with fleeting attention so while 60% of people in 1 poll say you haven’t accomplished much & 48% blame you for inflation, ask them in a week & many will have a different answer.

Mental health is on my mind because this week my daughter reported that a distraught stranger came knocking at her door at 10PM asking her to call his lost cell phone. She & her partner told him to go away. He just went down the street & knocked on someone else’s door. She didn’t want to call the KCPD because she feared that would not end well, but she knew she didn’t have the skills to help him & feared getting caught up in his delusion. As we debriefed the situation, we both wished there were some mental health professional she could call to intervene.

Albuquerque recently started ABQ Community Safety (ACS) for this kind of thing. It’s a crew of behavioral health specialists ready to help. 911 dispatchers are being trained to sus out the situations where they are needed. The DoJ pushed them to do this because their PD had killed some unarmed folks having mental health crises. It’s tricky, because delusional people can be dangerous & the interveners are unarmed. So far, it’s working out ok. ACS is serving mostly unhoused people during the day & is gearing up to work 24/7.

In addition to having 1st responders who can help folks in crises, we need places for them to go. They do not belong in the emergency room of a hospital. Please fund more Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics that can receive Medicaid $$. It will save us a lot of $$ & make emergency rooms sane places.

Yangon Friends wonder if we can send an emissary to Myanmar to broker a peace deal similar to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Please give that some consideration.

BYBS,