CHRISTOPHER MASON

Third in a series.

Officer Christopher Mason has been with Middlebury Police Department since 2009.

There is a burgeoning housing crisis in Vermont, as evidenced in our state’s shockingly high rate of unhoused, and even more shocking increase in that rate — an estimated 218% between 2007 and 2023 according to HUD. The causes are complex, with contributing factors extending through every facet of the social fabric. 

Most of my professional encounters are with the people at the very fringe of this diverse group — typically those struggling with a combination of acute poverty, addiction and mental health issues. An effective response for these folks would have to address all three major factors, each of which is dishearteningly monumental.

Focusing purely upon mental health, I am convinced our community is grappling with a public health catastrophe.

When engaging with people experiencing a mental health crisis, I often reach out to mental health services for support but seldom receive it. I am generally able to de-escalate situations, despite being confronted by severe psychosis, paranoia and aggression, but these calls pose a significant hazard, most especially to the person in crisis. 

The protocol is for police to transport people who are unsafe to the local hospital where mental health professionals can evaluate them to determine if continued custody is warranted. These individuals are often forced to stay in a room in the ER for hours or days awaiting that assessment, and then awaiting a residential placement after that assessment has been made, all the while receiving almost no mental health treatment, sometimes physically or chemically restrained, and frequently in the grip of overwhelming confusion and terror. The situation deteriorates if they decide to leave. Hospital staff are not permitted to physically restrain people, so police sometimes have to locate a psychotic, suicidal or homicidal individual wandering in the community.

This process does a profound disservice to the person experiencing the mental health crisis. It also puts the community at risk, endangers hospital staff (there have been numerous assaults upon personnel at Porter), and negatively impacts patients at the hospital, sometimes severely.

Often a formal evaluation doesn’t even occur, and the person is deemed safe to return home after a very brief conversation with a counselor. I’ve known this to happen when the person was interrupted making a suicide attempt, cut down in the process of trying to hang themselves.

These incidents are especially surreal when mental health services call police to respond to a mental health crisis. It’s my duty to protect people, and I will do that to the very best of my ability, but often the intent is for law enforcement to address behavioral issues rooted in mental health problems through the criminal justice system. Several times, I’ve been ardently urged by mental health staff to arrest people in crisis, to incarcerate them as a solution to ongoing disruption — a request that is appalling, but also based upon a lack of understanding of the justice system. Even if a person were to be charged criminally with damaging property or causing a disturbance, the response would be to give them a citation to appear in court in several weeks, not to immediately incarcerate them.

Sometimes the situations are truly absurd. I’ve had counselors inform me they cannot perform a psychiatric evaluation because the person in crisis does not pose an imminent threat to themselves or others — then, moments later, I’m told counseling cannot be provided because it would be excessively dangerous for the counselor. 

This lack of response has resulted in incalculable harm and even death. It is not acceptable.

Of course, I know the Counselling Service of Addison County (CSAC) is profoundly under-resourced. Mental health infrastructure has been dismantled in the state and every agency is experiencing a staffing shortage. Many of the counselors I work with at CSAC are dedicated, competent and deeply compassionate individuals. They too are victims of these intolerable circumstances, asked to do the impossible and condemned for their lack of success.

One of the consequences of this problem is that our homeless shelter is being used as a residential mental health facility, though it’s not structurally designed for this, and staff are not trained to provide treatment. I know they frequently struggle in vain to gain assistance for people in crisis, and are repeatedly told individuals in the grip of devastating mental illness do not meet the criteria for intervention. This not only means people are failing to receive services that are desperately needed, but well-meaning staff are being subjected to debilitating, traumatic and sometimes dangerous situations.

As part of our response to the housing crisis, these issues must be addressed. We owe it to these most marginalized members of our community, we owe it to our service providers, and we owe it to ourselves. Whether our primary motivation is compassion or self-interest, the mandate is equally imperative.