Corey Hoyt: Mental health issues shouldn’t be a reason to deny housing

To The Daily Sun,

After watching the recording of the Oct. 3 Planning Board meeting on the Bay Street project and reading the Oct. 6 Daily Sun article about the meeting with great interest, one takeaway for me was that a correction to Councilor Bruce Cheney's remarks should be made. In response to Planning Board member DellaVecchia's statement that a developer could build a three-family building on the site that could easily have 12 people living in it, Councilor Cheney actually said: "And they wouldn't all be mental health folks who need help — they would be families and folks that fit in the neighborhood."

Meaning, Councilor Cheney does not think "mental health folks who need help" should have the same housing opportunities as other people.

The distinction Cheney makes between "mental health folks who need help" and other people is based in a false understanding of mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness:

1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year.

1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year.

1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year.

50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10-14.

According to those statistics, it's safe to assume that there are already "mental health folks who need help" living in the neighborhood, including adults and children living in family households. A housing development like the one before the Planning Board may even build awareness for the high-quality, accessible support that Lakes Region Mental Health Center provides to our community.

Let's not allow bigotry to stop our community from doing what is right and necessary to address the crisis of housing instability and homelessness.

Corey Hoyt

Laconia