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Friday, March 13, 2015 — 3
areas, is important because a
lot of smaller health issues are
overlooked.
“There are a lot of local
problems that we seem to
overlook, because everything
is pushing toward global and
holistic care, so we want to
make sure that we actually
pay attention to these small
problems,” Halow said.
Kilaru said the disparity
between health care in rural
countries often seems more
pressing than domestic issues,
even though it’s more difficult
to solve.
“Groups on campus are
much more likely to have a
much larger impact on a cul-
ture that they understand
well, and serving low-income
patients in Detroit is much
more similar to what we
understand,” Kilaru said. “And
although it’s important to look
globally, a lot of these prob-
lems still exist at home.”
firmed Thursday evening.
In a video that Funkhouser
produced for the campaign, the
couple explains that they became
homeless after Danielle Chavez
lost her job as a receptionist due
to a persistent illness and Mat
could not sustain them with his
job as a carpet installer.
In an interview Wednesday,
the couple said since coming to
Ann Arbor they’ve spent nights
in their car when they had one, as
well as at friends’ houses, hotels
and on the streets. Every day, they
try to collect enough money to be
able to stay at a hotel for the eve-
ning, which they said they man-
age to do a little more than half of
the time.
On nights they don’t find a
place to stay, Mat Chavez said
they walk around the city and try
to find a place open late, as well as
remain in areas that are protected
from the weather.
In response to the donation cam-
paign, the Chavez couple said they
are very grateful to Funkhouser as
well as for the donations, and did
not expect such a response.
“I’m still amazed because it’s
good to see that there are really
good people out there and that
just really proves it,” Danielle
Chavez said. “Anytime anyone’s
discouraged and thinks ‘there’s
only bad people out there’ — no,
that is not true.”
Mat Chavez echoed his wife’s
gratitude. He noted, however, that
though money has been collected
through the campaign, he and his
wife will not actually have the
money for a few weeks after dona-
tions close. They still need money
every day to sustain themselves.
“Last Thursday we didn’t make
it, and it was really cold outside,
and I am walking around and I’m
going ‘Oh my God! I have $4,000,
but I don’t have $4,000,’ ” he said.
Both told the Daily that they
moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor
about two years ago after becom-
ing homeless because they said it
is safer here for homeless people.
“Plus, we had heard that there
were services for homeless peo-
ple here,” Mat Chavez said. “We
found out, as we got here, that
is not so much the case. But it is
much easier to be homeless here.”
The couple noted that most
people in Ann Arbor treat them
well and only a few have mistreat-
ed them. Danielle Chavez said
she’s been screamed and spit at by
people walking by her.
Mat Chavez said he feels like
the city almost doesn’t want
homeless people to improve their
situation, referencing the city’s
actions this summer to bulldoze
a homeless campsite in Broadway
Park. The residents were told they
were on the property illegally and
had 48 hours to vacate.
“Not only will they not build a
bigger shelter, they won’t build
another shelter, they won’t do any-
thing but they want to come tear
people’s tents down and their sug-
gestion is ‘well leave, why won’t
these people just leave,’ ” he said.
He added that the decrease of
funding to mental hospitals is a
further problem for homelessness
in Ann Arbor.
Danielle Chavez noted that
while Ann Arbor has better ser-
vices for homeless people than
other places, shelters and afford-
able housing are services that the
city needs to improve.
“You can get 24 free meals in a
week here, but there is nowhere to
sleep,” she said.
Funkhouser said he believed
the $10,000 funding target was
enough to put the couple back on
their feet.
“With renting apartment and
food every day and the every-
day expenses, I figured that they
would have a cushion instead
of having to try and get back on
their feet with, let’s say, $1,000,”
he said.
Funkhouser said he is optimis-
tic about reaching the target and
plans to stay in touch with the
couple once the campaign is over
to see if they need anything else.
Mat and Danielle Chavez said
they are uncertain about what
they would do with the money
from the donations, but their pri-
ority is to get off the street and
find a place to live, though they
don’t know where that would be.
Mat Chavez also added that he
plans on forming a band once the
couple finds a place to live.
“I have a lot of original music
that I don’t play out here,” he said.
“And after this experience I’m sure
I’ll be able to write a lot more.”
half of the students who suffer
receive help.
Schlissel
emphasized
the
importance of a support network
among students to prevent men-
tal health issues.
“We are broadening the way
to address these illnesses and
learning that peer support is
vitally important among stu-
dents,” Schlissel said.
In September, Central Stu-
dent Government and Coun-
seling launched the Wolverine
Support Network, a program
designed to provide peer sup-
port for students on campus.
Dr. John Greden, the execu-
tive director and founder of
UMDC, said the amount of years
the event has existed reflects the
importance of addressing men-
tal heath issues among college
students.
“People who attend keep
saying we need to continue,”
Greden said.
Michael Young, former vice
chancellor at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, was
the keynote speaker. During his
speech, he said mental health
issues are much more prevalent
in modern university environ-
ments in the United States than
they were in previous years.
“Why are so many more stu-
dents having psychological and
psychiatric issues than in the
past?” Young asked the crowd.
Outlining the work of a com-
mittee on mental health he co-
chaired during his time in the
UC system, Young said the high-
er rates might come from a com-
bination of factors: the lack of a
wide availability of counseling
and medication, the age of men-
tal illness onset corresponding
with the average age of the stu-
dent body and students strug-
gling to deal with failure.
He also mentioned several
other stressors that might con-
tribute to higher incidence of
mental health issues in recent
years, such as helicopter par-
ents, increasing global turmoil
after the 9/11 terrorist attacks
and a poor job market.
Rick Warren, associate pro-
fessor of psychiatry, led a work-
shop during the conference
focusing on how self-criticism
could affect students’ mental
health. He said high self-criti-
cism and low self-compassion
both pose a high risk for devel-
oping depression.
Warren said students can also
put themselves at risk of depres-
sion when they connect their
self-worth to achieving their
goals and said students need to
accept themselves unconditionally
regardless of their performance.
“Students need to set goals
that
are
self-concordant,”
Warren said.
Self-concordant refers to the
concept that individuals should
pursue goals because they want
to, not because they feel other
people will approve.
The conference also recog-
nized two students for the Stu-
dent Mental Health Advocate
Award, LSA senior Siang-Chean
Kua and Ashli Haggard, a senior
at the University of Maryland,
College Park.
The two students were rec-
ognized for their leadership in
campus mental health by rais-
ing awareness of mental health
issues, advocating for mental
health services and reducing
stigma around mental illnesses.
Kua wrote in an e-mail inter-
view with the Daily that he was
motivated to get involved in
mental health issues on campus
through volunteering at the Uni-
versity Hospital’s inpatient psy-
chiatry unit.
“I realized that a number of
patients admitted into the unit
were students like myself,” Kua
wrote. “That helped me under-
stand the scale of mental health
issues to a greater degree and
inspired me to do something on
the student level.”
According
to
Kua,
there
weren’t
any
University
stu-
dent groups dedicated to men-
tal health at the time. He said
this motivated him and several
friends to establish a Michigan
chapter of Active Minds, an orga-
nization focused on promoting
student discussions about mental
health to educate and encourage
students to seek help.
Kua, who is currently a mem-
ber of Active Minds as well as
the Healthy Minds Coalition,
wrote that Active Minds aims
to promote student dialogues as
well as “reframe and repriori-
tize mental health on campus”
using diverse methods including
mobile applications, video series
and monologues.
“For the current semester,
a mental health monologues
event is currently being planned
where we plan to have speakers
discuss their own thoughts and
experiences regarding mental
health,” Kua wrote.
seconded by Councilmember
Jack Eaton (D–Ward 4).
Safety
The streetlight whitepaper
notes that a Streetlight De-
energizing Pilot in 2010 found
that the public believed more
lighting increases nighttime
personal safety and a lot of
residents believed home thefts
would be more likely in under-
lit areas.
However the report also
found that there is no correla-
tion between crime and light-
ing on streets, whether that
is crime committed against
pedestrians or occurs in the
neighborhood.
The
student
community
has also expressed concerns
about streetlights. LSA junior
Michael Fakhoury, chair of the
Central Student Government’s
Commission on Student Safety
and Security, said many stu-
dents have complained to CSG
about lighting on campus.
“There’s a lot of safety issues
— there’s actually being safe,
and the feeling of safety, which
are two different things,” Fak-
houry said. “A lot of the areas
that are not well lit on campus
are being explored right now.
Obviously we’re taking it one
step at a time and looking at dif-
ferent issues.”
At the CSG meeting on
Wednesday,
a
resolution
regarding the moratorium and
lighting was presented.
Assembly Resolution 4-033
expressed support for the city’s
removal of the moratorium, and
called for the addition of new
street lighting in areas where
students have expressed griev-
ances. CSG has begun collect-
ing and analyzing data based
off of student complaints, to
establish a more comprehensive
lighting recommendation to the
city.
“Before the moratorium was
lifted, there wasn’t much we
could accomplish at our meet-
ings with the city,” Fakhoury
said. “The city officials were
very encouraging, telling us to
look into this and gather data so
they could examine it more and
investigate these areas.”
A map of lighting in the
vicinity of Hill Street, Oxford
Road and Geddes Road was
included in the agenda. Other
areas being investigated by CSG
include South Campus and Ker-
rytown.
“So we’re looking at areas
where lighting is inadequate,
and we’re welcome to receive
any additional areas that stu-
dents would want to see more
lighting at,” Fakhoury added.
“We’re gathering the data right
now, and the points on this map
represent areas that have more
than 250 feet of space between
lights, which is ridiculous … I
welcome anyone to e-mail me
with crossroads at areas of con-
cern and we will definitely look
into them.”
LSA senior Serena Bidwell, a
member of CSG, was one of the
students who brought forward
issues about lighting.
“A lot of my friends have
complained because we all
live in off-campus housing, so
the walks at night going home
from the library or the week-
ends can feel very unsafe, and
we shouldn’t feel unsafe on our
campus,” she said.
LSA Student Government’s
Student Life Committee has
also received complaints. Com-
mittee Vice Chair Arun Datta,
an LSA sophomore, said in the
past year, two students have
submitted complaints, one for
catcalling at night and the other
for feeling unsafe while walk-
ing off campus.
“They didn’t give a specific
location, but it is pretty easy
to understand that the whole
off-campus area isn’t really
lighted well,” Datta said. “LSA
Student Government also held
a walk along with administra-
tors around campus recently,
in which members of the gov-
ernment helped point out spots
that need lighting.”
Greg Bazick, the deputy
chief of the Ann Arbor Police
Department, also said that
perception of safety seems to
be greater in places that have
more lighting.
“While
it’s
generally
believed in crime prevention
circles that lighting is a very
effective deterrent to crime,
studies conducted over time by
various organizations have not
been able to establish an abso-
lute correlation between light-
ing and crime from a statistical
perspective. Results have been
mixed.”
Bazick added that he does
not expect the AAPD to be
impacted immediately by the
lifting of the moratorium.
“The department certainly
wouldn’t discourage enhanced
lighting in public rights of way, yet
at the same time there is no data
to indicate that those enhance-
ments would affect substantive
change in those areas from a sta-
tistical crime measurement per-
spective,” he said.
Eaton also noted that citizens
have raised safety concerns due
to lack of lighting on some streets.
He gave Packard Street, from its
intersection with State Street
until Stadium Boulevard, as an
example of an under-lit area peo-
ple have complained about.
“We can’t instantly solve
everybody’s desire to have well-
lit streets,” he said. “But we can
start the plan by identifying
which areas are high priority.
And I believe that those will
really be matters of safety.”
Funding
The lifting of moratorium
has no immediate effect on
the city aside from giving City
Council the option to increase
its budget for street lighting.
If and when this increase will
actually happen depends on the
budget City Council is currently
discussing for the fiscal years of
2016 and 2017.
During the same City Coun-
cil meeting last month, City
Administrator Steve Powers
suggested that City Council tar-
get which areas need relighting
so that staff could incorporate
lighting for those areas in the
budget.
The next budget meeting will
take place March 23.
Ann Arbor Mayor Christo-
pher Taylor (D) said he expects
staff to come back with a pro-
posed policy for when the city
should introduce or decommis-
sion streetlights depending on
the immediate need.
“Streetlight
maintenance
and the energy associated with
it is a surprisingly large portion
of our budget — somewhere
in excess of $2 million a year,”
Taylor said. “So cost contain-
ment is something that we will
need to consider as we deter-
mine whether and where to
place new streetlights.”
Eaton said the lifting of the
moratorium is an important
first step, but nothing is going
to happen quickly — and that
assessing how to fund potential
new lighting is an issue.
“Lifting the moratorium is
the first step in a multi-step
process. Next we identify pri-
orities and then we identify rev-
enue that we can spend on that.
It will take years to actually roll
out what we fully intend to do,”
he said.
Councilmember Julie Grand
(D–Ward 3) noted that the
lifting of the moratorium is
not attached with any funding
and simply gives the city more
flexibility when considering
street lighting.
“Really for me the only way
we are going to have more fund-
ing for this is if we strengthen
our tax base which means
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