The St. Clair County Public Guardian’s Office and Mental Health Court have seen an increase in caseloads and caseload complexity in recent years, which officials say has been fueled in large part by the current housing crisis and the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The offices serve people with cognitive and physical disabilities and people with mental illness and substance use disorders. The increased caseload has forced the Public Guardian’s Office to become more creative in finding housing for its clients, while the mental health court sometimes takes longer to graduate participants from its program.
What do the Office of the Public Guardian and the Mental Health Court do?
The St. Clair County Public Guardian’s Office is designed to meet the basic needs of people who are unable to care for themselves and have no other local family members to help them. The office covers basic needs, such as housing, food and transport, and visits the people it cares for to ensure their needs are met.
People may enter guardianship because of cognitive or physical disabilities, old age, mental illness, substance use disorders, or a combination of these factors.
Amanda Seals, St. Clair County Assistant Public Guardian, said guardianships are not meant to be permanent and can last just a few months or can last decades for those with the most severe mental disabilities.
“Guardianship is not about control, it’s about advocacy,” Seals said. “It’s about advocating for a person to get what they need. It’s about getting resources to people.”
People can be referred to the Public Guardian’s Office through elder protective services, the court system, law enforcement, other community partners, or family members.
Mental Health Court is an alternative to incarceration that connects individuals with serious mental illness and/or developmental disabilities to treatment and community resources to improve quality of life and reduce recidivism.
The Mental Health Court can also refer people to the Office of the Community Guardian. Sometimes the mental health court also uses the resources of the Public Guardian’s Office to stabilize situations for its program participants, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two services, said St. Clair County Probate Judge John Tomlinson.
By the numbers
Tomlinson said legally incapacitated guardianships are for those who enter a guardianship due to a life event, such as someone becoming ill or having an accident. A developmental disability guardianship is for those born with severe cognitive disabilities.
- The number of legally incapacitated active guardians in calendar year 2021 is 950, compared to 837 in 2018. As of June, the office currently has 914 legally incapacitated active guardians.
- There were 813 active guardianships with developmental disabilities in 2021 and 823 as of June 2022, compared to 760 in 2018.
- Fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30. There were 65 participants admitted to the St. Clair County Mental Health Court in fiscal year 2019, 52 in 2020 and 94 in 2021. From October 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022, there were 49 participants admitted. Tomlinson said.
- In fiscal year 2019, there were a total of 127 Mental Health Court participants, compared to 120 in 2020, 155 in 2021 and 134 from October 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.
Tomlinson said the office saw a drop in participation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when gathering restrictions prohibited many from carrying out their normal activities.
Tomlinson said the increase in cases for both the public guardian’s office and the mental health court may be due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health court participants facing mental illness and/or substance use disorders may have been more affected by the stress and collection restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the economic effects and collection restrictions of the pandemic have passed, the populations served by the two offices need more time to regain their lives after a major event, Tomlinson said.
“I think it hit the population that we serve through guardianships and mental health orders and all that stuff harder than other people because they didn’t have as much of a cushion or margin for error.” If you lose your home and have no money saved and no apartments to rent, what will you do? And if you can’t solve this problem yourself and you don’t have a friend or family member to help you, what will happen? It’s not going to end well,” he said.
The housing crisis also makes cases more complicated
Tomlinson and Seals said the increase in the number of cases and the complexity of those cases could also be due to a growing housing crisis, rising inflation and financial pressures, and an increase in the financial exploitation of vulnerable people.
“People’s situations are much more complex than they used to be … There are no simple solutions anymore,” Tomlinson said. “There are no homes. People take advantage of vulnerable people and take their social security and their resources, their Bridge cards, anything they can get their hands on, so we’re reaching out more to law enforcement and (Adult Protective Services) . And it just takes us longer to try to stabilize situations because there aren’t ready resources to do that.”
With the low supply of affordable housing and high demand, people with very low incomes, those with criminal histories, and those experiencing mental and substance use disorders will have a harder time finding housing than the general population. Seals said.
The struggle to find housing is sometimes even more difficult than the struggle to find landlords who will take Section 8, supervised housing or foster care placements for the elderly, she helps.
“I think (landlords) have the ability to be pickier,” Seals. “So we didn’t have to worry about housing as much before. We could have gone on Craigslist or the Port Huron Area Landlord Association website and found six apartments, no problem. We could choose whatever we wanted, and that’s no longer the case.”
Seals said her office has addressed the challenge of finding housing by working with their community partners, such as St. Clair County Mental Health and Elder Protection Services, to offer services to keep people in their homes . The office has also sent some clients out of the county or by pairing them with roommates.
The public guardian’s office has also dealt with the growing need by hiring more staff and converting part-time positions to full-time, Seals said.
Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or [email protected]