r t r r c
o build compl
D orr - Gre ter
Gr ce Temple of the
A tolic F . th h been
w rded 5.3-milion
federal gr nt from the
Dep rtmcnt of Hou. in
nd Urban 0 vclopment
(HUD) to build n 9-unit
. enior citizen complex t
hi w ee nd 7 Mile,
ccording to Rev. Charles
Ellis Ill, istant p tor of
the church.
Con truction on the
three- tory structure will
begin by late fall nd resi­
dents are xpected to move
in starting November 1993.
The project i financed
under a program President
George Bush has dropped
from his current budget
propo. at.
It' all In the
exp ctatlon
YPSILANTI -Disad­
vantaged" youths who
spent one month in a
residential program tar­
geted at providing them
with life-improving skills
went on to achieve higher
levels of education than
similar youths not in the
program.
According to a study is­
sued by the program spon­
sor, High/Scope, the
program broadened ex­
periences, provided role
models, helped the youths
raise their expectations
and overcome obstacles
typically faced by "disad­
vantaged" or students of
color.
Cop-out or
ca h low?
SOlJIHPlELD - School
officials here have
dropped a plan to entice
older teachers to retire so
that younger teachers of
color can be hired to
replace them.
The plan is on hold be­
cause of a proposal by Gov. '
John Engler to shift
teacher Social Security and
retirement costs to local
'districts from the state.
Southfield's cost under the
plan would be $4 million.
Others say the school
district has wimped out in
the face of the controver- .
sial teacher: replacement
plan, dubbed by some a
quota plan.
The 9,OOO-student dis­
trict employs 640 teachers,
11 percent of whom are
minority.
U-M
multicultural
center
threat ned
ANN ARBOR - A one­
time grant of $40,000 in
1988 for the Ella Baker­
Nelson Mandela Center
for Non-Racist Education
has not been supplanted
with enough of its own
earnings, threatening the
life of the center.
The center opened in a
response t o student
demands for a more racial­
ly sensistive campus. Stu
dents say the conservative
mood of the country is
reflected in the dwindling
funds for the program.
The Center houses
books, articles and films on
racism, sexism and
homophobia. It employs a
director and student
employee who with volun­
teers sponsor speakers and
programs to raise con­
sciousness and broaden
the understanding of a
predominantly white tu­
dent body coming from the
narrow life experience
found in suburbia.
y
The medic I in ormation
provided for em ill be written
by the merle n College of
o tetrici d Gynecologi in
p mphlet called "Important
Medic 1 F ct bout Induced
Abortion."
receive medic 1 inform tion in
dvance."
Gena
communications
to Life, 'd he' 'd omen
will receive pro-choice prop d
and controlled inform tion from
th propo ed pamphlet
II
;
credible medical ource," he'd.
r y Long, director of
Planned Parenthood liat 0
Michigan, wa ple ed th t the
ub titute bill provides medi I
fact nd' elimin ted the
photograph ,although he till
di like th waiting period.
he bill is a pack of
lies. It reats women
,like dumb, mindless'
people. II
- R p. Maxine Berman,
"THE HOUSE ub ti tute
version of the bill was introduced
by Rep. Bill rtin, D-Battle
Creek, and Rep. Donald Gilmer,·
R-Augusta. The 24-hour waiting
period is still intact. The key
difference is that women will not be
required to look at any pictures of
fetuses, and a medical ociation
will provide them with information
about abortions ..
'Hospital closure
W ohu
LANSING - A bill that wa
expected p through the Ho e
in favor of pro-life upporters,
p ed 1 t wee ith amendmen
leaning to the pro-choice ide of
bortion.
The amendmen eliminate the
requirements of hawing pictures
of fe to women and producing
a pamphlet explaining the bortion
proce from a profes ional
medical ociation. The 24-hour
waiting period till remains.
When the Senate bill originally
pas ed through the Sena te it
required women to have a 24-hour
waiting period before undergoing
an abortion. In addition, women
were required to be shown pictures
of developing fetuses, and have the
complication of abortion
explained to them by a physician.
Many pro-choice legislators,
including Rep. Maxine Berman,
D-Soutbfield, believed the original
bill to be pro-life biased, and even
inaccurate, because the Right to
Life of Michigan organization
provided physicians wi th the
information that would be given to
women undergoing abortions. .
•
•
al hospitals closed. We want to get
rid of all the traditioruil employees,
because they have become institu
tionalized them e lves," said
Wellwood, who says he has met and.
worked with more than 6,000 mental
health patients throughout the state
and has had a mental illness.
Unde'i the Department of Mental
Health's plan, the regional mental
health centers in Coldwater, New­
berry and Muskegon will be closed
over the next six months as part of a
trend toward increased reliance on
community-based programs that
began in 1976. Patients already at
the hospitals will be placed in com­
munity-based programs or trans­
ferred to other state institutions
according to each patient's needs.
Mental Health Director James K.
Haveman said that his doctors and
the community mental health boards
tell him that there is nothing wrong
with the plan.
"Community mental health
boards and community programs are
ready and they are prepared to go,"
Haveman said. "The waiting lists
Gagliardi refers to are not people
who are just out of state hospitals.
Those lists aren't for the mentally ill
patients; they still have first priority
for placement."
Many of those people on the wait­
ing lists have never been hospital­
ized for mental illness or are merely
seeking help for aged family mem­
bers, Haveman said.
As an underlying philosophy for
the plan, Engler and DMH officials
said that the quality and kind of care
may be better in many cases than the
quality of care those patients could
receive in tate institutions.
Most former patients would
agree, Wellwood said. He said com­
munity care programs have come a
long way and now provide such an
array of ervice and support
programs that they are far superior to
state institutions.
"COMMUNITY MENTAL
health programs have a variety of
activities that really let the patients
be themselves and get back their self­
esteem," Well wood said. "In state
institutions, you just don't get that
level of love and tenderness."
Unfortunately, the peeter of
losing job may have clouded the
issue of patient care, said William L.
McShane, director ofthe bureau of
" A Y 0 E I
Michigan have to travel a few ho
t go and ee a doctor. Th y will
now have to make thi trip more
than onc ," he aid. "It' a
barrier."
Rep. Phillip Hoffm n,
R-Horton, voted again t the
ub titute bill. He believ that
when the bill go back to Senate it
will be rejected and then ent to a
conference commi ttee.
"1 felt it was a major etb ck for
pro-life upporters," he . d. "They
exp t .. d a tr nger ve ion (of the
bill) to pas ."
Legislative director of Right to
Life of Michigan, Ed Rivet, . d he
was pleased that the waiting period
will remain, but was till in favor of
outlawing abortion.. '
"This is th real WOrld, not the
perfect world," he said. "We're
most concerned that the women
" H call
bortion y that
bortio are dan ero er the
first trime ter of pregn cy," he
'd. "The u titute bill benefi
the abortion indu try the m t.
They h ve financial interest in
women having bortio . "
Gilmer aid the propo doesn't
inte f re with doctor-p tient
information.
"We are now dealing with
neutral and medical ource," he
said. "The information provided
will give women full c oice to
continue or terminate pregnancy.·
"We have broken the trongbold
that Right to Li e d on the
Michigan Legi lature over the past
few years," Long . d. "This' a
better bill than they originally had
before them."
"This a major compromi e on
both sides of the i ue," Gilmer
said. "Nobody will be celebrating
over a victory, and no one will be
crying over defeat."
Berman disagreed.
"They (pro-life upporters) lost,
period. The bill we put in today is
a bill that respects women and gives
them factual information from a
By DAVIS NEUMANN
Ctplt!/ N.w. S«VIt»
LANSING - Most of the oppo i­
tion to the imminent closing of three
state mental health racHitie is job­
related, not a question of quality
health care, according to Gov. John
Engle�.
But leg. lative leaders and
employee groups say the issue is
really over patient welfare.
And meanwhile, mental health
patients are the ones who get hurt
when state legislators and employee
groups fight with Engler and the
Department of Mental Health over
who knows ,best about patient wel­
fare.
Engler said that most health care
providers are in agreement with his
policies and that much of the resis­
tance comes from disgruntled
employee groups.
"We find that much of the opposi­
tion is, in fact, led by the employees,"
Engler said in an interview. "If you
look deep enough, you find that it is
really a jobs issue."
BUT REP. PAT Gagliardi, D­
Drummond Island, and a union
pokesperson for state mental health
workers, contends that the dispute
really is over the quality of health
care programs, which he says just
isn't available yet.
"I'm all for community place­
ment," Ga'gliardl said. "But we just
don't have the places for them yet.
In some area , we have 14,000
people on waiting lists waiting to get
into community mental health
programs."
Amid the quablUng and postur­
ing, the very mental health patients
. whose interests the politicians claim
to champion are really being over­
looked, said Richard Wellwood, ex­
ecutive director of the Justice in
Mental Health Organization, a sup­
port center tatted by former patients
in Lansing.
"That' not helping us,"
Wellwood said. "All of this fighting
has to quit before the communitie
become so stigmatized by misinfor­
mation that they won't let us live
there."
Wellwood said the consumers of
mental health care are being over-
looked in all the fracas. ,
"WE WANT ALL 0 tradition-
Grammy Award winner, Patti LaBelle wa pr ent d with a tribute from th R.n.l_nce D It
Mentor foundation (RDMF) for LaBelle' -Mark of Excellence- In helping to Incr •••• th qu Iity of
life for many of the youth, eniors, handicapped and AIDS Re earch. Th. trlbut. WI pr ntecI
by (RDMF) Advl ory Board Mos Findl y Jr., nd C;:onstance Willi m • Findley atated that the
mission of the foundation I. to develop our youth through educ.tlonal, social and economical
tructure. '
community mental health services
for the DMH.
Gaglardi 'has said that the result of
closings like these is.a sad deteriora­
. tion of the state's mental health sys­
tem.
"What we're finding is that there
are a lot of real problems with the
system," Gaglardi said. "For one
thing, the dollars haven't been fol­
lowing the patients into the com­
munity programs and haven't been
for years."
Regardless of what Haveman.
says, community mental health
facilities stnt aren't ready to meet the
needs of the patients who will be
displaced by the closings, said Pam
Omer, spokesperson for United Auto
Workers Local 6000 in Lansing.
weren't ready to provide the 24-hour
care the patients were accustomed to.
"I think what happens i that they
�Engler and the DMH) stop thinking
about the patients and start thinking
about the budget," he said.
Orner also noted that the clo ings
will upset many local economies,
most severely in Newberry, where
she said the hospital provide many
of the area's Jobs.
Census figures for the state in­
stitutions have been decreasing since
the '60s, and have reached their
lowest point since that time, accord­
ing to DMH records. State
psychiatric hospi tats had about 2,663
patients in re idence and about 757
residents in developmental centers.
By comparison, state psychiatric
hospitals erved 19,059 patients in
1960, Developmental centers have
12,516 developmentally disabled
patients in 1965.
The state ho pital population may
have gone down, but Gagliardi says
it has really just shifted.
"Now we are warehousing people
in the public," Gagliardi aid.
"Community placement has orne
real [laws that we cannot overlook,
There' just no emphasis by t
ministration on care for the me
ill."
" URE IT'S A job-related
issue," Orner said. "But you can't
close these things down without
thinking about what happens to the
patients."
"A.lot of these patients have died
off as a result of these transfers," he
id, because the community institu­
tions the patients were transferred to
WELLWOOD AID tbat idea:
doesn't make sense, because those.
people are discharged by the hospi-.
tals. .
"You let us out! Where did you:
expect us. to go?" Wellwood said.'
"All of thi is exploitation!" :
"Having a mental illne i a-
traumatic experience," he said.
"Why hould we be punished for
something that we didn't create? We:
didn't go out and take crack and kill'
somebody, so why hould we bO
punished?"
"People just don't need to be
tbrown into an institution and loe
away. Mo t of the time, the
they are considering for communi
placement can find treatment in
community and get jo and 11
normal life. "
"The bottom line is that -.c.._".�
mental health care co ume
just like everyone el e. We
crazy, we are not nuts. We
human beings, and we have re
ings."