Thank you for the articles on Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary’s approach to deal with the crisis we are facing with the mentally ill and drug addicted in our jails. (“What Jail Can’t Cure: A sheriff refuses to ‘warehouse the mentally ill.’?”) I applaud The Herald for bringing this issue to public awareness and discussion. I applaud the sheriff’s approach of seeing this issue as a public health issue, rather than strictly a policing one.
Across the country research shows that “housing first” allows the issues of the homeless to be addressed, with positive and lasting results. By providing housing and social intervention, step by step, peoples lives can be reconstructed. We can’t police ourselves out of this issue. And it is important to remember that the homeless are someone’s son or daughter, maybe someone’s father or brother or sister. It is unconscionable that in our highly developed and rich country we should put people in jail because we don’t have sufficient psychiatric beds for them. The results as happened for Keaton Ferris, are shocking and barbaric.
A vast majority of crime and homelessness are related to addictions, so addressing the true nature of the problem can save public dollars and provide real solutions, rather than a revolving door to the jail. I have personal knowledge of people detoxing in the jail, getting put in solitary confinement — this leads to mental health damage, and can be extremely dangerous to the physical health of the person. Treatment centers have special detox under medical supervision due to the dangers for the health of the person. It should not be the responsibility of untrained jail personnel to deal with a person with medical issues like this.
I would only urge Sheriff Trenary to include methamphetamine in his wholistic approach. This drug is still rampant in Snohomish County, and very often leads to mental health damage. Any person entering the jail should be screened for whether they are “tweaking” from meth, or detoxing from heroin or alcohol. The issues related to meth, heroin and alcohol are very important to include in the picture, along with mental health issues, as the county looks to the summit on homelessness. I do hope our new County Executive Dave Somers continues plans for this summit that were started by his predecessor.
Allison Warner
Camano Island
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