Police, agencies helping mentally ill homeless

Aug. 29--With statistics showing approximately 30 percent of homeless people having a serious mental illness, a group including police, mental health and social service agencies is trying to make sure they get all the help they need.

The Crisis Intervention Team, comprised of local law enforcement and mental health and social service officials, is a recent program designed to train officers to recognize persons exhibiting mental health issues.

A person who is homeless and has mental health issues presents a different set of challenges, according to Matt Kneib, a St. Joseph police officer who deals with the homeless on a daily basis. It involves trying to bridge the gap between the homeless community and the agencies that could serve them. Many times it's dealing with the perception of the police officer's role in serving their needs, Kneib said.

"With the homeless individual a lot of times their perspective is that we're there to harass them or to bother them or to move them along if a business complains and wants them out of that area, so their contact with us a majority of the time is negative. What I'm trying to do is give more of a compassionate approach," Kneib said.

That usually involves getting into an in-depth conversation with the person to determine their needs and the best services to fit those needs and whether or not they are a veteran.

"Typically if we respond to a call with an individual, if it's something ... they're needing medical attention or hospitalization due to their mental issues or something like that. That's the typical calls that we deal with where it's that short-term fix to the situation, so I'm trying to look more past that and figure out more of a long-term fix to the solution," Kneib said.

Dan Moyer, executive director of the Open Door Food Kitchen, said he sees an increase of mentally challenged people who come through his doors for a meal. Some are homeless, some are wards of the state and some live permanent housing, he said.

"Lately we've been getting a lot of transient people. We'll see them for three of four weeks straight and we won't ever see them again and a lot of them have some mental problems," Moyer said.

A point-in-time count done in January this year found 195 people who identified as homeless in St. Joseph.

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