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Due to an expiration of federal funding, Hamilton County will end a program that once helped house and treat people who have frequently been incarcerated or hospitalized, the Times Free Press recently reported.
The program, known as the Frequent User Services Engagement initiative, gave those with an extensive history in the carceral and health care systems a place to sleep at night and constant treatment of mental illness. In 2023, the county program served 30 people.
But now those services will cease to exist on the county level. And while this, in all likelihood, is due to a callous federal government headed by President Donald Trump caring little about providing mental health services, the fault also lies with us.
The way we talk and think about mental health — which in turn contributes to policy that dictates how we treat mental illness — is deeply troubling, both socially and politically.