By Liz Abrams, January 14, 2021 — I remember in the 1990s I was affiliated with a mental health consumer advocacy [group] and I was an advocate for mental health consumers. When I was with this agency, we decided that most of the colleagues, friends, and acquaintances were mental health consumers themselves, and we found that the services that were meted out to special people, such as the consumers, were not adequately covered by insurance companies or the state department as they covered services for people that had physical issues.
So, we gathered ourselves — the social agencies, consumers, and advocates — and we protested. We marched — and this was the 1990s — to the federal building where congressmen were seated. We protested there with the [chant], “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” Then we gathered our transportation to Harrisburg with the same protest to the state department, and then we moved on to Washington D.C. and we stormed congressmen’s offices, and eventually asked and demanded services for the mental health consumers.
However, today, in 2021, mental health consumers are still underserved and not all are homeless or poor or minorities. But, as of January 2021, middle America and your president are definitely underserved for mental health treatment as we witnessed when the United States Capitol was assaulted in January 2021.