Support mental health in Huron County

Oct. 06--The following editorial was published last week in the Norwalk Reflector:

We were somewhat taken aback last month by the news that 38 county residents had committed suicide in the past four years.

According to the 2014 Huron County Health Assessment Status Report, 9 percent of county residents reported feeling sad or hopeless two weeks in a row; and the number of people suffering from depression had grown from 8 percent of the population in 2007 to 10 percent in 2014.

While those numbers are startling enough, it's our bet that the actual numbers are even higher.

Mental illness is a subject many people still don't like to talk about in polite society. Many consider it some type of moral failing or just plain weakness on the part of the victim. Families continue to be embarrassed by it.

That's just depressing, no pun intended.

Mental illness is a real and serious affliction. It can be as deadly as heart disease and cancer and, like heart disease and cancer, can often be successfully treated if caught in time.

As we reported Thursday, the Huron County Board of Mental Health and Addiction Services (MHAS) provided 2,000 county residents last year with mental health services and another 2,600 received MHAS funded community educational presentations or other mental health or chemical dependency prevention services.

At a time when hard drug use is rampant in the county (look on the Reflector's "For the Record" page on just about any day for proof), so many people out of work, or underemployed, struggling financially, our rates of depression and suicide on the rise, the services provided by MHAS are needed now more than ever, and if anything, should be greatly expanded.

Alas, as we reported yesterday, those services are in danger of being cut back as a levy first approved 40 years ago is set to expire. It is the board's only source of local funding, the rest coming from the state and federal government, both of which have cut back on such funding.

On Nov. 4, Huron County voters will be asked to approve a 10-year replacement levy. The replacement levy will still represent a half-mill levy that for the average homeowner would cost a total of 4.7 cents per day, or $17.50 a year.

We can think of few initiatives more needed or timelier than the approval of this replacement levy.

Basically for the price of about a third-of-a-tank of gasoline, we can continue to fund the desperately needed services provided by MHAS. The fact is, depression and chemical dependency issues deserve a lot more attention and funding than they receive and while desperately needed, the small levy replacement being sought is not enough to make a big dent in the problem.

Be that as it may, reducing funding, falling behind, is literally a matter of life and death and not an option. Few of us are lucky enough to be untouched by this issue, either struggling with it personally or through a friend or loved one.

So many good things are happening in our community. We're optimistic and hopeful for Huron County's future and we want as many of our residents as possible to feel the same way -- that things can and will get better.

Please keep those people in mind and make it a point to go out and support the levy on Election Day.

___

(c)2014 the Norwalk Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio)

Visit the Norwalk Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio) at www.norwalkreflector.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services