After spending the holidays joyfully celebrating traditions with our loved ones, the start of 2024 has been a harsh return to reality. Headline after headline, day after day, we’re reminded of the mental health crisis facing our city.
Just as I was ending my first week back at work for the new year, I received word that one of my youngest constituents, a 6-year-old girl by the angelic name of Hosanna, had been killed by her mother, who suffered from mental health issues. I couldn’t help but cry as I called the mayor to let him know we had a tragedy in our district.
In public service, there’s a fair share of sadness that we are exposed to; it comes with the job of serving others, but there are some things that we can never really prepare for. Amid this crisis is an opportunity to answer the calls for help in our community, and I saw this in the aftermath of Hosanna’s death.
I was able to speak with the Southwest Independent School District chief of police, whose police officers are always ready to lend a helping hand, and asked if he could help me track down the little girl’s school to make sure that the students and the teachers would have access to counseling when they returned to school and found out about Hosanna’s tragic death.
I followed up with the staff at the apartment complex where the tragedy took place. They had witnessed what was labeled as a chaotic scene by the San Antonio Police Department, and the NRP Group, which manages the complex, had immediately arranged counseling services for their employees.
When I asked our interim fire chief for an update a couple of hours later, he told me that he was still waiting for more information and that fire crews would receive a critical incident stress debriefing due to the nature of the call. I am glad that we offer these resources to our first responders as they try to recover from the atrocities they witness.
That got me thinking, whose job is it to help an entire community heal? I think it’s all of us.
Our mental health has been impacted by one of history’s worst pandemics. Many of us lost neighbors, friends and family members, and we’re seeing the impacts of social isolation and trauma. Mental health support is needed now more than ever.
I’ve heard time and time again that mental health is a public safety issue, but it’s far more complex. Mental health affects individuals and communities differently. People’s lives depend on access to mental health resources and services, and that can’t wait. We need a compassionate, comprehensive plan of action, and our community must come together now to help prevent the next tragedy.
In 2022, the San Antonio City Council allocated $26.2 million to mental health using federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. As of today, $4.7 million has been expended through the portion that Metro Health received. But why, if this truly was the category with the most need — and I believe it is — have we not spent more of the money on providing our families with the resources they need?
In December, I visited with a woman at one of our local senior centers, who approached me about the need to start a support group. She lost her husband over the holidays eight years ago and goes to the senior center because she feels sad at home alone. At the center, she sits in the computer room with her headphones and her memories, listening to the Beatles songs her husband used to serenade her with. That visit made me think that we could perhaps use some of the ARPA funding to get a group therapist to visit our senior centers regularly.
As the Compassion Drive for DreamWeek is underway in San Antonio, I am committed to doing my part to help reduce the stigma associated with talking about mental health by taking an Adult Mental Health First Aid Training course. This DreamWeek, I dream of a San Antonio where we all commit to being part of the solution.
