Chicagoans in under-resourced neighborhoods say the barriers to accessing mental health services affect youth, adults and communities alike.
by Kathleen Hayes, Monique Petty-Ashmeade, Lauren Pious and Arieon Whittsey
Teenagers paint their shoes as part of a youth program at Whitney M. Young, Jr. Branch, Chicago Public Library’s Whitney M. Young, Jr. Branch in Chatham on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. (Trent Sprague/for City Bureau)
Chicagoans know what sort of mental health services they want to see in their communities.
But they don’t expect to see those services coming to their South and West Side neighborhoods any time soon.
City Bureau Civic Reporting Fellows visited the neighborhoods of Austin and Chatham to connect with community members and understand what mental health care looks like to them and what resources they feel their neighborhoods lack.
Those who spoke to City Bureau highlighted stigma around seeking help. Others underlined generational differences as contributing factors to what they see as mental health concerns with local youth.
Residents of all ages imagine resources and spaces that revolve around community members being able to take care of their own. Until then, they seek connection and understanding from their neighbors.
Editor’s note: Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Chatham
Along a stretch of 79th Street, residents go about their days as they weave in and out of the neighborhood’s beauty supply shops, braiding salons, dollar stores and the public library.
Shamica Brown, 41, grew up on the West Side, but lived in Harvey, Illinois; Indiana and Wisconsin before moving to Chatham a decade ago. She said she has anxiety, PTSD and bipolar disorder.
Is there a place in the neighborhood where people can go for information or mental health resources?
Not that I can think of. They put your name on a list and then [say], “I’ll call you when we got something for you,” but that never happens. I've been on that list for years.
How do you think adults in your community should interact with the youth in this neighborhood to help them?
[My siblings and I were] raised in the system until I was 21 years old. They wanted to keep me until I was 25 because I had so many mental and emotional issues from, you know, just life. I was just blessed that my mom was able to get clean off drugs and get our life together.
It starts at home. It really does. If you can't get to the parents, [you’re] definitely not gonna be able to get to the children.
Have you been able to create a healing space for yourself as an adult?
I go to therapy because I need it. I talk to somebody about all this and just let it out. I’ve been in therapy all my life. I stopped going because I was ashamed, but then I grew up and was like, I need this.
Is there anything you envision being in the neighborhood that could help community members with their mental health?
Job programs, training programs … We need social services, somebody you can go talk to when we need help. You got all these churches that don’t provide us with anything. A lot of people lost religion. They don’t want it because it’s not putting food on the table. It’s not putting clothes on your back. It’s not putting a roof over your head. And without those three things, people feel like they don’t have a home.
Kelis Major, 19, is a Chatham resident who also grew up in the area. We met her outside the Family Dollar store.
Do you think this neighborhood has resources that are helpful for mental health?
Not really. I mean, not free. You mostly have to pay for them or have insurance.
What resources to help young people would you like to see created here?
Instead of tearing down buildings, people could rent buildings and get a community group [together] for the kids to keep them off the streets. I was actually in one of those groups. We had one on 79th and Coles. It was really nice to keep us off the street and in a happy, safe haven.
How do you think adults in your community should interact with the local youth?
Not yell at them and learn how to parent gently. It’s a lot of rough parenting. Be a little soft on the kids. They don’t have to go through hard times just because you went through hard times.
Reggie Jackson, 56, is a security guard at Cosmo Beauty Supply.
What resources exist in the community that you think could help young people?
Things have changed since I was growing up. Kids don’t want to listen; they want to talk back, and you get upset. This world has just changed.
Everybody needs some counseling. Everybody needs to sit down at the table and have people to talk to. I talk to people all the time. If you have a problem, you gotta talk to somebody. You can’t keep it in.
Destiny Smith, 22, is a mother of two who has lived in Chatham for two years after moving from Peoria, Illinois. She was taking some time for herself without her young children while on a trip to Family Dollar.
Are you able to prioritize your own mental health care?
I’m no good at that. I have two kids at home. I’m 22 and I have a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old. Sometimes I feel mentally drained and like I’m not doing good enough, but I also don’t want to send my kids away because they are young. I want to help them, so I put them before me.
When I feel like I’m at the point where I am either going to harm myself or just neglect myself, I call up my daughter’s godmother. She comes and picks [the kids] up.
Do you feel like people are able to get mental health support in your community?
You have to get sent to the hospital because you’re having a mental breakdown before somebody asks, “Are you OK? How are you?” It’s like the last breaking point is when somebody reaches out and starts talking to you. I’ve never seen any resources around here.
If you could envision resources or spaces for young people to get that support, what would you want to see?
A community center where kids can go to de-escalate and unwind. We can also have a little program for parents who are mentally down — teenage parents, adult parents, all types of parents. Everybody needs some type of mental de-escalating.
Lashanta G., 28, is a Chatham resident who moved to Chicago two years ago. While she spoke, she brought out a red lawn chair to enjoy the sunny afternoon.
When you hear the phrase mental health, what comes to mind?
As a person dealing with mental health currently, it is very important for people to understand that we’re not all crazy. We have day-to-day struggles like everyone else. We have good days and we have bad days. Today I’m having a really good day.
How is mental health talked about in your community?
It’s looked down upon. My family suffers from it — it’s like a genetic trait, I guess, but we’re all regular people. We live our lives like everyone else. We still work, we still do our part in the community and try not to be as crazy as people portray us to be.
What resources in the neighborhood do you think would help when it comes to addressing mental health?
When I talk to people sometimes, they just need a friendly ear. Sometimes they just need to walk and talk. But I think we need to have more mental health places around here. The drug facilities need to offer that at least, because these people just need help. It’s not that they want to be addicts; it just calms whatever they are going through in their head. If we had more counselors or more people in the community doing outreach, it would help them.
How do you go about finding mental health resources?
What I do to help certain [people] from this community is I go to [Whitney M. Young Public Library on 79th and King Drive] and print out resources for mental health places in Chicago [for them]. All I can do is my part — from one person who knows what you’re going through to another.
As long as you take the paperwork from me and show initiative, that’s all I care about. I don’t want to hear one day that something happened to one of these people. This is my community. I want to do my part to at least make it safe for us.
Austin
Across the city’s West Side, Habilitative Systems Inc. offers support services including employment training, substance abuse recovery and mental health care to underserved communities, including through the Westside Community Triage and Wellness Center. Employees of the center and HSI view these organizations as rare resources in a community that lacks safe and intentional spaces to address mental health concerns.
Steven Langston, 50, is an Habilitative Systems, Inc. employee. He said he believes the collective troubles shared by the community trigger mental illness.
What do you think about when you hear the phrase mental health?
When you talk about mental health, that’s a symptom of a larger [societal] sickness. We understand that. Even though we may not understand mental health, we kind of know what it looks like.
How should adults in the community interact with the youth when it comes to talking about things like mental health?
A lot of the time, I think they shouldn’t. Because a lot of adults were worse off as kids and [are] passing on misinformation or stuff from their trauma to the next generations who probably look up to them.
How is mental health talked about with your family and friends?
There's so much that we have to wade through, even before we had that conversation. We’ve got to get through the harmful effects of television — the just constant barbaric bombardment of violence on the news.
Kaylynn Cameron, 27, is an Austin native, a writer and a Habilitative Systems Inc. employee. She wonders if the community should investigate if intergenerational trauma is affecting the local youth.
How have you heard mental health talked about?
Mental health isn’t discussed enough. It’s not broadcast enough for people to honestly know.
We need more resource centers for mental health for [people] to be able to express themselves. For them to be able to come in for help.
How have you been able to prioritize your own mental health?
I’m a writer, so what I do for myself sometimes is write. Therapy, too.
Where have you seen community members getting support with their mental health?
That's the thing, they don’t. They are walking up and down the street — walking the streets and sitting at the bus stop. We have a whole center right here where you can come in and we can give you some resources.
Keri W., 30, is an Austin native. She is an alumni of the Off the Street Club and an employee of Habilitative Systems Inc.
How is mental health viewed in your community?
Some people don’t notice the emotional and psychological [components of mental health] … If we can catch [those components] at a younger age, imagine how the world would be. [We’d be] attacking the problem as a kid and not at the last minute as an adult.
Learning about mental health, sometimes I am able to intervene when I see younger people acting out. You’ve got to make people feel comfortable. Not everyone feels comfortable talking and opening up. That takes time.
How was mental health talked about in your family?
In my house, when I grew up, we could talk about mental health because of past barriers, because of the past trauma in our family.
Intervening with these kids, [people] are always labeling them as bad and [saying] that’s all you’re going to be. We give up on them so easily. We need each other. We need more people from our community who are in that field. The kids, they’re not getting the chance to know themselves. They’re piggy-backing off of generational things or what they see. I wish we could get more resources.
Support City Bureau’s work to reimagine local news by becoming a recurring donor today.