The Mayor’s Big Mental Health Play
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has re-opened the shuttered Roseland Mental Health Clinic and begun expanding behavioral health services across the city
By Bruce Japsen
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has unveiled plans to expand access to mental healthcare in Chicago and reopen a shuttered city clinic.
This year the city plans to reopen the Roseland Mental Health Clinic at 200 E. 115th Street on the city’s far South Side. In addition, the city plans to add mental health services at the city’s Pilsen clinic at 1715 N. Ashland Avenue and Legler Regional Library at 115 S. Pulaski Road in West Garfield Park.
“It is time for a new era of rebuilding our city’s mental health care infrastructure to serve all of the people of Chicago,” Johnson said in his announcement earlier this summer.
Johnson’s move to expand mental health services comes as cities, states and the federal government move to address a spike in behavioral health problems made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Chicago's case, Mayor Johnson also tells his personal story, often speaking of his late brother Leon, who he has often called his hero, but says he “struggled with mental illness and died addicted and unhoused.”
The fatal overdose epidemic in the U.S. hit an all-time high during the pandemic, crossing 100,000 fatalities in a single year for the first time in 2021 in the wake of increased isolation during lockdowns. Meanwhile, suicide rates are soaring across the U.S. with a record of nearly 50,000 in 2022 alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
“Chicagoans suffering from mental health problems and their families have been neglected and discarded for far too long,” Johnson said in announcing the expansion of mental health clinics, which will be operated by the Chicago Department of Public Health. “That ends today. My administration will not stand for more cuts, more privatization, and more neglect of our city’s mental health care system.”
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