Ontario plans additional mental health services to treat offenders

Community Action, Jan 24, 2005

The government announced plans to spend $27.5 million annually in community mental health agencies across the province that will provide services to an additional 12,000 people which will treat non-violent offenders. The plan includes:

* crisis response and outreach, to provide access to a range of services and supports on a 24/7 basis to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis:

* short-term residential crisis support beds, or "safe beds," that can be used as an alternative to custody or hospital beds;

* support services, located in the courts, to assist with cases involving the mentally ill;

* intensive case management, to identify and provide services required to keep people in the community with supports;

* supportive housing services, which provide longer-term housing with mental health services.

The plans drew mixed responses. Steve Lurie, executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Toronto Branch, and chair of the Toronto Mental Health and Justice Committee, congratulated the government for "stepping forward and expanding these critical community services."

Leah Casselman, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union said that will do little to keep mental health patients out of the province's jails. "This money won't create one new assessment bed," Casselman said, calling for a moratorium on further psychiatric hospital divestments and bed closures.