The Momentum Center Segregates People with Mental Illness and Disabilities from the Community
The Momentum Center claims that they are creating an inclusive environment within the community for people with mental illness and disabilities, but there seems to be some indications that the opposite is true. Rather than including people with mental illness in the places and events in the greater community, the Momentum Center has created a building where the community can be included with people that have mental illness. The Momentum Center seems to have it backwards.
During the June 26, 2023, Ottawa County Community Mental Health board meeting, Barbara Lee Van Horssen, the Experi-Mentor at the Momentum Center explained.
(8:28) “Located within the Momentum Center in Grand Haven is the Momentum Café, and in Holland is the Moo-Mentum Ice Cream Parlor. Those allow for public integration through food. So those places are open to the general public and to our members. So instead of unintentionally creating more isolation for people, we are providing a place for social integration where we can break down the stereotypes and dismantle the stigmas.”
A 1999 lawsuit known as the Olmstead Decision gave people with disabilities the right to receive state funded supports and services in the home and community, rather than inside institutions. The MDHHS Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Administration Inclusion Practice Guideline describes the policies and standards which govern all public mental health services. According to the guideline Section V. Standards,
“This includes giving first consideration to using a community's established conventional resources before attempting to develop new ones that exclusively or predominantly serve only mental health recipients.
Some of the resources which can be used to foster inclusion, integration, and acceptance include the use of the community's public transportation services, leisure and recreation facilities, general health care services, employment opportunities (real work for real pay), and traditional housing resources.”
The Momentum Center has created a center for people with mental illness; a space where they can congregate and be hidden away from the community. Living inclusivity within the community means that people with mental illness and disabilities are enabled to participate in activities that take place within the community. They may want to attend the Coast Guard parade, a local movie, go camping, or take art classes. Rather than creating substitute activities at a center, the goal is to provide support people so all people can participate in community activities no matter where the events occur.
Even Barbara Lee Van Horssen, the Experi-Mentor at the Momentum Center understands this. During the June 26, 2023 Ottawa County Community Mental Health board meeting she stated:
“Studies on Least Restrictive Environment of Care have been conducted in school settings, and they provide evidence of this kind of strategy beyond what we experienced ourselves. When I was a kid in school, people who required special education, per se, were segregated away from the general population of students. When forward thinking educators began testing integration of students with special needs, those students themselves not only, but the general population did better as well.”
Why have our tax dollars been allocated to pay for an institutional center where the community can participate with the mentally ill? Rather than offering movie nights, social time, bingo, and yoga for people with mental illness, addiction, and disabilities at a center, we should be providing the support necessary for these people to participate in activities already offered by the community.
The goal is not to integrate the general public into a mental health center. The goal is to integrate intellectually and developmentally disabled into the general public.