LSJ has an artical about the planned psychiatric hospital to be built on the site of Eastern HS. The depiction looks pretty nice, a modern sleek mainly brick building. There was also a depiction of the garden walkway with two arches from the old school building. What is done is done so I guess I would have to say that U of M is putting forth an impressive plan for a high-quality building and grounds replacing our historic building. There is also money for the surgical center across Pennsylvania, but no drawings of the project were posted.
Side comment, but I'm talking a class with the East Lansing police and they mentioned that, it is very easy for the police to grab someone behaving in an erratic way (or threatening suicide or something), take them to Sparrow, and then the police fill out a form that compels them to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. Sounded like they do that all the time. But 90% of the time, immediately after the evaluation, Sparrow releases them. They said the individual almost has to say "you're right, I do need help, please help me" for Sparrow to keep them. If they say anything else, including lying with "I don't know what the police are talking about, I feel fine", Sparrow will just let them go.
(They do have to be sober for the evaluation, so Sparrow will keep them until they sober up, first, if that's happening.)
And it did sound to me like part of the issue might be that Sparrow doesn't really want them there either. I don't know if a larger facility will change that.
They did also say that the number of mental health related calls has surged over the last five years. They offered no explanation for that fact, though I personally wondered about marijuana. (They did mention one case study of a guy they regularly interacted with in downtown East Lansing, apparently he loved it when the police got called on him, and by his own telling, this guy suffered from marijuana-induced psychosis.)
I think I know who you may know the guy talking the police are talking about, some days he is kind of mild some days and some days he would be aggressive calling me names etc. I think that although some people should not use cannabis or relay on it for mental health issues, as a long-time consumer of cannabis, I think one would have to ingest a huge amount of cannabis to trigger a psychotic episode most people fall asleep after too much. More likely this man is also has been consuming alcohol and maybe something else. He does say he loves being in downtown EL with all the young people, who are generous. He once hugged me and called me a great man! There are some of the street folks who just sit and do nothing much except for some mild soliciting by 7-11 and on Grand River, some who do make a mess and act up. All things being equal I would say the students do much more damage and cause more trouble than the street people, I hope the hospital will have room for some of them too, they need to learn how to behave and get over their entitlement issues. Everyone needs a place to sit down even close their eyes, it we could all just follow the rules of manners and how to behave in a public place that would solve a lot of these problems. if you can follow the rules than welcome! I guess one has to learn the rules first.
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(They do have to be sober for the evaluation, so Sparrow will keep them until they sober up, first, if that's happening.)
And it did sound to me like part of the issue might be that Sparrow doesn't really want them there either. I don't know if a larger facility will change that.