Patients at center of rift over housing

A proposed apartment complex for recovering mental patients in Cape Girardeau pits neighbors who say they have justified concerns against medical professionals who say their patients are wrongly stigmatized.

The Community Counseling Center on Wednesday unveiled its plan to build housing with space for 21 people at the corner of Silver Springs and Bloomfield roads. The apartment units would be for low-income patients moving from psychological treatment or institutionalization to independent living. Patients would be from Cape Girardeau County.

The Community Counseling Center, an accredited rehabilitation facility certified by the Missouri Department of Mental Health, will apply for funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It recently received a $1.7 million capital advance to build a similar home in Fredericktown, Mo.

But the plan has already hit a roadblock. Wednesday, the Cape Girardeau Planning and Zoning Commission recommended against rezoning the property for the use. A petition signed by 26 people from surrounding neighborhoods persuaded five commissioners to vote no. A public hearing on the plan will be held at the April 2 city council meeting.

Linda Shelton lives on neighboring Penrod Place and spoke for area residents at the zoning meeting. She said any reasonable person would object to the plan.

"The top concern was to have mentally ill people wandering within a few hundred feet of where you live and coming into your yard. The people I spoke to were not comfortable at all with that," Shelton said.

The center currently treats 3,000 patients annually at its office, which is next to the site of the proposed apartments.

Another Penrod Place resident, Regina Yeager, 84, said she and other elderly people will no longer feel safe in the neighborhood if the housing is built.

John Hudak, executive director of the counseling center, said mental illness is feared mainly because it is misunderstood. He said the main criteria for patients living in the apartments would be that they are self-sufficient and are certified by doctors to pose no threat to themselves or others.

"There's that stigma," he said. "It keeps the community from welcoming people back home. If you go in to the hospital for surgery, you go in, you get fixed up, then they send you home. The assumption is home is where the recovery is going to take place. Where you're around family and friends and you start getting reconnected and rejoining the community. It's the same with mental health."

Because of advances in medication and treatment, he said, patients with illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and severe depression can now live and function normally.

The Community Counseling Center operates an 18-bed psychiatric group home with 24-hour supervision at 341 N. Main St. But Hudak said people leaving this intensive supervision need something slightly more nurturing than the often rundown apartments where they become isolated and tend to regress. He said the Silver Springs Road location with its proximity to the center, businesses, churches and public transportation is a perfect spot.

"People here have come to learn to deal with their illness like people with diabetes learn to deal with their illness. They're concerned about their recovery. They're concerned about their health. They just want to get on with their lives," he said.

Jerome Riley, 59, calls himself living proof of that. At age 24 he began suffering from bipolar disorder. He was working as an auditor for the IRS in Kansas City, but had mood swings that would take him from euphoric highs to "deep, dark depressions." He came to the Community Counseling Center about seven years ago and now lives independently.

"The stigmas and concerns and fears of people are fueled by television and movies which show people out of balance that have illnesses. You've got to understand the type of people that are associated with CCC are not violent people," he said.

Maryln Rastl, 57, has battled severe depression for three decades. Through treatment and medication at the Community Counseling Center she says she has conquered her illness and now lives on her own at Cape Gardens Apartments.

With the center's support she got a degree from Southeast Missouri State University at the age of 44 and works as a Community Counseling Center advocate. She says the housing would be "an answer to a prayer" and wishes those who fear the mentally ill would sit down and talk to her.

"I bet if I looked at that attendance roster of people at that meeting, I've probably gone to church with some of them. ... We don't walk around with signs that say we have an illness," she said.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245