Perspective: When it comes to hurricanes, the U.S. can learn a lot from Cuba

Cuba leads the world in disaster preparation, IMHO.

Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba

A man kayaks down Route 51, which was flooded and impassable to vehicles by Hurricane Ida on Aug. 31 in LaPlace, La. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

According to an independent study on Cuban disaster preparedness, Cuba has created “an innate culture of hurricanes, resilience and safety,” ensuring “that the population is aware of the country’s risk reduction system, educated in risk consciousness and disaster mitigation, able to use the lifeline structures in an emergency and actively participate in disaster preparation.” As a result, disaster preparation has been successful at saving lives in Cuba.

A perspective piece by Mikael Wolfe,assistant professor of history at Stanford University, highlights what the U.S. can learn from Cuba.He is currently working on a book project titled “Rebellious Climates: How Extreme Weather Shaped the Cuban Revolution.”

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Mass Media Misleads

It would be nice to think we have won. It’s not even close. These are blitzes that do not provide the needed permanent systemic changes that we need.

From this article, Chicago Targets 15 Hard-Hit Communities For A Vaccination Blitz To Fight Called Protect Chicago Plus www.wbez.org, the program started in Belmont Cragin this past weekend, administering a whopping 1,500 doses in just two days. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

These are blitzes with vaccines distributed by the public sector. “There are 14 other neighborhoods that will see similar vaccine blitzes under Protect Chicago Plus in the coming months.”

These are “closed” registrations that probably mean cherry-picked populations with connections to private organizations. There is no public outreach. That means people who live off the grid don’t even know.  “We decided to opt for a closed registration system, which means that we did not circulate flyers, materials, or any sort of publicly available registration tool,” Rudyk said. Instead, about 50 different individuals and institutions booked appointments for people, including the local alderman and state representative.”

There are communities missing.  Pilsen comes to mind. ” Little Village, Gage Park and North Lawndale in mid-February; “Montclare, Englewood and West Englewood in late February; Austin, Back of the Yards and Archer Heights in early March;; Roseland, Washington Heights and South Deering in mid-March; and Humboldt Park and Chicago Lawn in late March.

One population that is totally neglected are persons with disabilities. Consider this:  https://progressive.org/dispatches/bad-case-vaccination-envy-ervin-210218/#.YC8Z-Y7eHx4.linkedin

This is not a system like The People’s Response Network to COVID-19 to rebuild a PUBLIC system https://peoplesresponse.wordpress.com/; it’s a mish mash of smoke and mirrors to shut people up. It’s a media blitz, not an equity blitz.

The Sun-Times does no better: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/2/17/22288296/vaccine-covid-19-shots-belmont-cragin-south-west-side-lori-lightfoot-register.

About the low positivity rate the Chicago and Illinois cites, that is an average for the whole area. Some areas are in the 20+% rate. Mass media does not report that.

What will we do when the next pandemic hits, with no public health accountability? We can do better now.

Homeless James Thomas

(parody of Eleanor Rigby)

Ah, look at all the homeless people!
Ah, look at all the homeless people!

Homeless James Thomas
Picks up a tarp and the mat where his home tent had been
Breathes in dirt air.
Limps on the sidewalk
Begs snippy NIMBYs for fast food or change they might spare.
Nothing is there!

All the homeless people,
Where do they all come from?
All the homeless people.
Where do they all belong?

Homeless James Thomas
Wipes off the salt sweat that drips from his fever-pitched brow
Coughs up green phlegm.
Look at him dying,
Wears dirty dust he collects that’s continually there
Nobody cares.

All the homeless people,
Where do they all come from?
All the homeless people.
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the homeless people!
Ah, look at all the homeless people!

Writing Tragedy by Jack Todd

Truth, truth, truth!

QWF Writes

In any life, there are events that shake us to the core. Some occur when we are very young, and they remain the reach of memory. Others persist in detail so heightened that it verges on the surreal, as if painted onto our retinas by a Salvador Dalí employing a tiny brush.

When I was eighteen months old, I was trampled by a boar hog with tusks. He ripped my head open, left a deep dent in my skull and nearly took out my left eye. Had my father not been able to kick the five-hundred pound beast away just in time, he would have eaten me for breakfast.

I have no recollection of the event whatsoever, except what I was told by my parents, and the occasional nightmare, in which hogs are rooting around in my bed.

More than forty years later, I stood in the season’s first snowfall…

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Top 10 Empathy Trends in 2021

I assume the cynicism referred to herein refers to distrust, Facts must be researched before trust is ascertained. Knee-jerk distrust leads to more distrust. I’m a big fan of critical thinking. Empathy is acceptance, not submission.

Empathy Lessons

“The Year 2020 in review: One Star – definitely would not recommend!” Good things to say about 2020? As Dave Barry quipped, nobody got killed by the murder hornets. Many of my empathy trends for 2020, prepared in December 2019, were blown up on the launch pad by February 2020 as the pandemic accelerated. “Empathy interrupted!”

The year 2020 was not an ordinary year in any sense. Obviously. The really tough thought gradually dawns on us: “Ordinary” willnevermean the same thing again in quite the same way.

The fundamental meta-trend of trends is to process that there is no going back to the way things were in exactly the way they were in December 2019.

I ask your understanding, dear reader, in that the pandemic features prominently in the first few trends, but since this is in the nature of a top ten list and the pandemic touches…

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2020 Budget Questions for the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities

2020 Budget Questions for the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities
Posted on October 29, 2019 by cmhbc • Posted in Access to care, Budget • Leave a comment
October 29, 2019

Dear Chicago City Council Members,

The Community Mental Health Board would appreciate it if you would please consider asking Commissioner Tamley a few of the attached questions during the City Council Departmental Budget Hearing on the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities 2020 Budget.

Six questions:

ADA Accessibility

After the Community Mental Health Board of Chicago filed a complaint with the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) in 2017, the MOPD surveyed Greater Lawn Mental Health Center (4150 W. 55th) and Lawndale Mental Health Center (1201 S. Campbell) for accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Both facilities were found to have access issues. Board membership includes persons with wheelchair experience.

The two mental health centers determined not accessible under the ADA were surveyed in 2012, as well. No action was taken then. But as a result of the 2017 survey, the renewed lease for the Greater Lawn Mental Health Center was revised in 2018, to include requirements to fix ADA access code violations. Please see O2018-4236, Exhibit A.

In response to the Board’s follow up request, on September 26, 2019, MOPD resurveyed the Greater Lawn Mental Health Center building. See attached. Several ADA code violations remain unfixed.

(1) What is the MOPD policy or procedure for following up on problematic facilities that house city services to be sure that identified problems get fixed? Do any of the remaining three mental health centers have ADA accessibility or other facility issues that still need to be fixed?

As a result of the MOPD survey of the Lawndale Mental Health Center facility, 12/4/2017, the City plans to relocate the mental health center to another leased facility at 1111 S. Western Avenue. Please see O2019-5592. At our request, MOPD surveyed 1111 S. Western on October 1, 2019. ADA access code violations were identified. Please see attached.

(2) How is MOPD working with Chicago Department of Public Health to ensure ADA code violations are fixed at 1111 S. Western Ave?

(3) What does Commissioner Tamley think about an ordinance requiring MOPD to survey facilities, under consideration to house city services, before the City signs off on a lease with the property owner?

The CDPH Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation (CARF) Survey Reports for three of the four past surveys have noted mental health service access barriers and recommended, each time, the CDPH come up with an accessibility plan and a plan for annually monitoring mental health service accessibility: “The plan should be reviewed at least annually for relevance, including progress made in the removal of identified barriers and areas needing improvement, and be updated as needed.” See CDPH-CARF Survey Reports 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016

(4) How are you working with the Chicago Department of Public Health to “implement an accessibility plan that includes actions to be taken and timelines for the removal of all identified barriers?” See CARF Survey 2016. [MOPD did not actually answer this question last year.]

Telepsychiatry

(5) This month CDPH initiated telepsychiatry at Englewood Mental Health Center. Has MOPD reviewed the accessibility of CDPH’s telepsychiatry service?

According to the most recent 2018 Illinois Department of Mental Health data, the employment of persons receiving mental health services from state supported services (including Medicaid) – such as CDPH is quite low. See 2018 SAMHSA Uniform Reporting System (URS) Output Tables. CDPH mental health center participants have asked for employment support.

(6) How is the MOPD (Task Force on Employment and Economic Opportunities For People with Disabilities and the Work Incentive Planning and Assistance programs) working with CDPH mental health centers to support and help people secure employment?

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

The Community Mental Health Board of Chicago

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0 THOUGHTS ON “2020 BUDGET QUESTIONS FOR THE MAYOR’S OFFICE FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES”
Kathy Powers says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
November 3, 2019 at 7:33 pm
Is accessibility a second-thought, unimportant aspect of this City’s agenda? I want to see MOPD inspect all facilities, and not sign off on them until they are up to code. If you can’t get in, you can’t get services. If you can’t hear, understand the language, can’t see a computer screen or are not afforded reasonable accommodation, you can’t get services. The ADA is the law of the land, for some time, and must be followed.

Chicago Mental Health Advocates

October 29, 2019

Dear Chicago City Council Members,

The Community Mental Health Board would appreciate it if you would please consider asking Commissioner Tamley a few of the attached questions during the City Council Departmental Budget Hearing on the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities 2020 Budget.

Six questions:

ADA Accessibility

After the Community Mental Health Board of Chicago filed a complaint with the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) in 2017, the MOPD surveyed Greater Lawn Mental Health Center (4150 W. 55^th) and Lawndale Mental Health Center (1201 S. Campbell) for accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Both facilities were found to have access issues. Board membership includes persons with wheelchair experience.

The two mental health centers determined not accessible under the ADA were surveyed in 2012, as well. No action was taken then. But as a result of the 2017…

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2020 Budget Hearing Questions for Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC)

This is a warm line. Is there a hotline or is it all on 911?

Chicago Mental Health Advocates

Dear Chicago City Council Members,

Proposed questions for Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) for your consideration.

(1) Can OEMC please provide annual and year-to-date 911 statistics on the total number of calls by police district and also a breakdown of the number of calls by district that are related to a mental health crisis, a substance use crisis, and the number responded to by a CIT trained police officer, for years 2017, 2018, and 2019 to-date?

(2) Can OEMC please explain why OEMC and the City are contracting out the handling of 311 calls for mental health services referrals to NAMI Chicago (National Alliance on Mental Illness of Chicago) instead of employing and training city workers to perform this function? Were any other vendors considered? Did OEMC consider referring residents to the already existing Illinois Department of Human Services Warm Line?

(3) Can OEMC please provide year-to-date and…

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Proposed Committee on Budget questions for the Depart. of Fleet and Facility Management (“2FM”)

I love the new murals at Greater Lawn Mental Clinic! Why don’t all of the clinics look as welcoming? Ask your alderman.

Chicago Mental Health Advocates

October 31, 2019

Dear Chicago City Council Members,

Proposed Committee on Budget questions for the Department of Fleet and Facility Management (“2FM”) below.

A.      Mental Health Center Signage

The city has five mental health centers. Often people in the local communities don’t know that mental health centers are available in their neighborhoods in part because many of the city centers do not have adequate signage.

Last spring, the city posted new external signs at CDPH mental health centers. However, all the new signs call the mental health centers “health center” and not “mental health center.”

(1)    Why was it decided to name the mental health centers “health centers”? Is there any concern that people will come into the centers expecting to find primary medical care services there? Does this mean that in the future the city plans to add a variety of health services to these sites?

(2)

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Coroners versus DWP

Murder in the most unlikely places!

Stop UK lies & corruption

A number of coroners have come out and stated the DWP played a role in the death of their clients. The DWP have the cheek to say the coroners are wrong – who are you more likely to believe – the professionals whose job it is to investigate deaths or a Government department with its own agenda?

Coroner Michael Oakley said the DWP benefits assessment was key to the death of Nick Barker.  Coroner Andrew Haigh concluded the death of Tim Salter was mostly caused by the DWP who drastically reduced his benefit.  Coroner Mary Hassell found that the trigger for Michael O’Sullivan‘s suicide was his recent assessment by a DWP doctor as being fit for work.

Meanwhile these people died under questionable circumstances with the DWP.  Cecilia Burns had cancer.  The DWP declared her fit for work.  She appealed the decision but died shortly after…

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CDPH Mental Health Facilities -Review

Chicago Mental Health Advocates

Facilities Meeting Note #1.
Greater Lawn:

The city has leased the building at 4150 W 55th for 31 years or since 1988.
2/25/88 the City Council first approved the facility lease from James L Warner (PIN 19-10-419-043, Lease No, 10035). See original lease, covering the period from 5/1/88 – 4/30/93.

As of the first day of occupancy, the rent was $18,748.33 per month and was to increase annually to $22,765.83, until 4/30/93.

Rent per Council records
$18,748.33 5/1/88 to 4/30/89
$19,685.75 5/1/89 to 4/30/90
$20,663.34 5/1/90 to 4/30/91
$21,694.50 5/1/91 to 4/30/92
$22,765.83 5/1/92 to 4/30/93
(Journal of Proceedings page 140 to 147)

Renewed lease on 8/4/93 starting at the same rent as in 1988.
$18,748.33 5/1/1993 to 4/30/1995
$19,685.75 5/1/1995 to 4/30/1996
$20,612.40 5/1/1996 to 4/30/1997
$21,707.89 5/1/1997 to 4/30/1998
:
:(Additional leases not retrieved yet.)
:
Lease renewed 10/16/2013; O2013-6548
for 10/1/2013 to 12/31/2016
Rent
$23,500.00 10/1/13 to…

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