Santa Cruz Police Chief discusses city’s mental health issue

UPDATE 4/27/18 9:00pm The city of Santa Cruz has seen an increase in people suffering from mental health issues over the years.

The problem was highlighted on Wednesday after a woman was attacked walking downtown by a mentally ill man.

Santa Cruz Police Chief Andy Mills said getting ahold of this issue has to be a top priority.

The Santa Cruz Police Departments mental health team contacted close to 1,400 people with mental illness in 2017. “It’s a significant effort, and that’s just with that team, our officers do it many more times than that. Some of them are the same person, multiple times, but almost 1400 contacts, so we are doing a lot, but we have to figure out how to do it better,” says Chief Mills.

He also says while the department does what they can, it’s going to take everyone to make a change, “we are regularly dealing with this and we certainly need the county and the state government in particular to really help with this,” says Chief Mills.

The County does offer dozens of mental health services, but some say it’s not enough. Carrie Ann Kelly knows from experience, she’s lived in Santa Cruz for 30 years. She says she is bi-polar and homeless. She says she goes to the Emeline Building in Santa Cruz for help and it has saved her life, but she wishes there was more funding, “I go to Emeline, great coordinators, great workers, great doctors. I think that we need more money to put into our system to where if you’re going to give a homeless person some food or some clothes, to make sure they don’t just do what they want and leave it on the ground.”

She says she often sees homeless people taking things from the shelters or services, but disposing of them without using them. “That’s what happened with San Lorenzo Park and why the rangers had to keep cleaning it up,” says Kelly.

And while there are outreach programs, some say more of them would be a good place to start.

“I do think that we need to have more boots on the ground, and I’m not talking about police, I’m talking about social workers and health workers who really know how to comment on the street building relationships with this population,” says Terry Maushardt.

Chief Mills also encourages residents to reach out to State Legislature letting them know the problems and how it is impacting the city of Santa Cruz.

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The city of Santa Cruz has seen an increase in people suffering from mental health issues over the years.

The problem was highlighted on Wednesday after a woman was attacked walking downtown.

Police chief Andy Mills said getting ahold of this issue has to be a top priority.

The Santa Cruz Police Departments mental health team contacted more than 14-hundred people with mental illness in 2017.

While the department is doing what they can they say it’s going to take everyone to really solve the problem.

“It’s a significant effort, and that’s just with that team, our officers do it many more than that, but we are regularly dealing with this and we certainly need the county and the state government in particular to really help with this.”

KION’s Ashley Keehn has the full story at 6 p.m.