I met a man at the Coronado Theater in Rockford, Illinois. We were there to register our disdain for the State of Illinois' effort to shut down the Singer mental heath center, which serves 21 counties in northwestern Illinois. I told him of the East Moline State Hospital. It was a place for the mentally needy in our midst.
At some point in the 1980s, the Reagan Administration emptied out the Federally supported institutions by killing funding for them. My mother had been a beneficiary of the programs in East Moline State Hospital.
Amazingly, a purpose was identified for the vast publicly created hospital and its property. It became East Moline Correctional Facility! What a benefit to society! Now, there was a place to place all of those strange entities who seemed to show up in public after they were shoved out the door. Instead of being patients, they were now prisoners! Damn! How easy is that? Prison guards are so much less expensive than medical professionals!
What now?
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