Mentally Illness

All things considered, the past six months have been good to Crenshaw Scott and Carlos Contreras. In January, the two men, 37 and 39 respectively, moved from uncertain, unstable worlds into a new universe that revolves around Hillview Village, an apartment complex for 50 formerly homeless adults in Pacoima. Once homeless and in and out of mental institutions, Scott and Contreras now live in apartments of their own.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky wants the board to consider tearing down part of the troubled Men's Central Jail and building a facility to house mentally ill and drug addicted inmates, which he says would offer all prisoners a better chance of rehabilitation while potentially saving the county millions of dollars. Supervisors have been struggling over what to do with their aging and overcrowded jails for more than a year. Sheriff Lee Baca, who oversees the nation's largest jail system, initially called for spending nearly $1.4 billion to replace or renovate the Men's Central Jail and the adjacent Twin Towers, but the price tag was more than supervisors would accept.

A housing project that allows homeless adults who are mentally ill or recovering from drug or alcohol abuse to share apartments is the first of its kind in Orange County, housing officials said. Henderson House, actually a pair of apartment buildings, is unusual because of its blend of residents and the fact that it will be self-supporting rather than subsidized once all eight units are rented.

Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved a plan Tuesday to study tearing down part of the Men's Central Jail and replacing it with a facility designed for mentally ill and drug-addicted prisoners. The new facility could save the county millions of dollars and offer inmates a better chance of rehabilitation, according to Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the idea. Yaroslavsky has opposed earlier plans to spend up to $1.4 billion to renovate or replace the Men's Central Jail and the adjacent Twin Towers Jail.

Nearly half of all cigarettes purchased in the United States are smoked by people who suffer from mental illnesses, according to Harvard Medical School research. Mentally ill people are roughly twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as those without mental illnesses, according to the research, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Assn.

A Santa Ana board-and-care home was closed Thursday as police and state regulators launched separate investigations into the death of an infant born there to a mentally disabled resident who later arrived at a hospital with the baby's body in a plastic bag, authorities said. Staff at the facility where the woman lives discovered the nearly full-term baby when they went to change the diaper of the woman, who has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, police said.

Go to a busy street in your community and count the next 25 adolescents who walk, bike, skateboard, stroll or saunter past. Odds are that two of those 25 kids (8.3% to be exact) would own up to having experienced 14 or more days in the last month that he or she considered "mentally unhealthy," according to a comprehensive report on the mental health of American youth issued Thursday. Between 2005 and 2010, roughly 2 million American adolescents between 12 and 17 acknowledged that for more than half of the previous month, they routinely had felt sad, angry, disconnected, stressed out, unloved or possibly willing to hurt themselves -- or others.

A respected skid row facility that provides shelter and counseling to homeless people became a site for drug dealing, leading to a double homicide inside the Lamp Lodge earlier this year, according to police detectives and court records. Los Angeles Police Department detectives allege that dealers sold rock cocaine and heroin out of the Lamp Lodge for months, a practice that ended after one of the alleged drug dealers and another man were shot to death there in April. Lamp officials said claims of widespread drug dealing at the facility are overblown.

Re "A Positive Link of Mind and Body" by Rosalynn Carter, Commentary, May 7: It is essential that the public be informed of the necessity of providing mental-health care access to everyone. All too often there is stigma attached to psychotherapy or hospitalization for mental illness. As Carter so aptly stated, there are so many benefits to good mental-health care, including a decrease in worker absenteeism and a decrease in visits to physicians. MARCIA BERNSTEIN California Society for Clinical Social Work Sacramento

Go to a busy street in your community and count the next 25 adolescents who walk, bike, skateboard, stroll or saunter past. Odds are that two of those 25 kids (8.3% to be exact) would own up to having experienced 14 or more days in the last month that he or she considered "mentally unhealthy," according to a comprehensive report on the mental health of American youth issued Thursday. Between 2005 and 2010, roughly 2 million American adolescents between 12 and 17 acknowledged that for more than half of the previous month, they routinely had felt sad, angry, disconnected, stressed out, unloved or possibly willing to hurt themselves -- or others.

SACRAMENTO - The state will send dozens of new agents into California neighborhoods this summer to confiscate nearly 40,000 handguns and assault rifles from people barred by law from owning firearms, officials said Wednesday. The plan received the green light Wednesday, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation providing $24 million to clear the backlog of weapons known to be in the hands of about 20,000 people who acquired them legally. They were later disqualified because of criminal convictions, restraining orders or serious mental illness.

SACRAMENTO - The state Assembly approved $24 million Thursday to speed up the confiscation of guns from Californians who are not allowed to own them because of criminal convictions or serious mental illness. A day earlier, lawmakers rejected a plan to allow school districts to train teachers and administrators to use guns to protect campuses. Legislators said the money they allocated would pay for 36 additional agents to capture 39,000 guns from people who bought them legally but were later disqualified because of a subsequent conviction or court order.

In his statement to his congregation about his son's death, Pastor Rick Warren talked about how “only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark  holes of depression, even suicidal thoughts.” Matthew Warren, 27, died Saturday after battling depression for much of his life, the leader of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest said in his statement. “Today after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his own life,” Warren said of his son. He described Matthew Warren as a “kind, gentle and compassionate man” with a “brilliant intellect” who was sensitive to the needs of others.

Nicholas C. Petris, who was a leading liberal voice for nearly four decades as a California state senator and assemblyman representing his hometown of Oakland and other East Bay cities, has died. He was 90. Petris, who retired in 1996 because of term limits, died Wednesday at the Oakland retirement facility where he had lived in recent years, his former chief of staff, Felice Zensius, said. The cause was old age, she said. A Greek American known for his eloquence from the floor of the state Senate, Petris championed a host of liberal causes during his career, offering legislation on behalf of the poor, the sick and the elderly.

SACRAMENTO - California prison officials have opened a new psychiatric center for inmates, contending that the $24-million treatment facility is proof the state is ready to shed federal oversight of mental health care for prisoners. The new building, at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, will provide outpatient treatment for mentally ill inmates who do not require 24-hour care. "It's time for the federal courts to recognize the progress the state has made and end costly and unnecessary federal oversight," Jeffrey Beard, secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in prepared remarks.

Re "Prison's revolving door," Editorial, Feb. 5 Crime and arrests in Los Angeles County continue to decline. On the countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee's website, the first annual report on public safety realignment shows recidivism rates lower than expected for people transferred from state prison to county supervision. Yet the same report says the population of L.A. County jails has risen by 22%. Why? In a 2007 study, USC psychiatry professor H. Richard Lamb found that 95% of the severely mentally ill men in the county's Twin Towers jail had been there before.

SACRAMENTO - California authorities are empowered to seize weapons owned by convicted felons and people with mental illness, but staff shortages and funding cuts have left a backlog of more than 19,700 people to disarm, a law enforcement official said Tuesday. Those gun owners have roughly 39,000 firearms, said Stephen Lindley, chief of the Bureau of Firearms for the state Department of Justice, testifying at a joint legislative hearing. His office lacks enough staff to confiscate all the weapons, which are recorded in the state's Armed Prohibited Persons database, he said.