At the Legler Regional Library in Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood, there’s a new service residents can check out in addition to browsing books or using computers. One day a week, they can now also talk to a licensed counselor who is stationed at the library as part of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s expansion of public mental health services.
Each Tuesday, Jordan Henderson, a licensed professional counselor with Chicago’s Department of Public Health, can be found in a study room at the library or browsing the rows of bookshelves to connect with residents who may need mental health services – much to many people’s surprise.
“People come to the library for all types of things, but one of the things that they don’t expect to see is mental health services,” Henderson said. “Some people come and need to vent. Others come for resources, whether that be housing resources, food resources, job resources. Other people need long-term therapy.”
Henderson has been providing services at the library – which can range from outpatient therapy to referrals to services – for three weeks, and hopes to see them expanded. It’s the first new site of Johnson’s recently-announced plan to expand the city’s publicly-run mental health services. In addition to Legler library, the city plans to re-open the Roseland Mental Health Clinic, add mental health services at the city’s Pilsen clinic and phase out the use of police responding to mental health crises.
The Legler library branch is one of the busiest distribution sites for the overdose-reversing nasal spray Narcan, and it’s one of three library branches in addition to the Beverly and Edgewater locations where mental health services are offered. Chicago Public Library Commissioner Chris Brown said libraries are natural places to reach people.
“The reality is, we don’t have a built environment for mental health spaces all throughout the city,” Brown said. “But we do have 81 libraries in all 77 neighborhoods.”
To mark the expanded services, Johnson held a small roundtable event Tuesday afternoon at the Legler library branch to discuss access to mental health issues and commemorate June as Men’s Mental Health Month. In 2022, men were roughly four times more likely than women to die by suicide, and rates were highest among older men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sitting around a table in one of the library’s community rooms, Johnson, Brown, 28th Ward Ald. Jason Ervin and attendees discussed the stigma that can prevent Black men in particular from accessing mental health services – and the importance of receiving treatment from an understanding provider.
“I know, specifically as Black men, Black boys, it’s helpful, when you don’t have to always explain your trauma and pain,” Johnson said. “Someone who just sort of intuitively knows or they can finish the statement – just that simple head nod, where it might take a little bit more for that child to open up.”
Curtis C. Jones, Jr., a patient of the Lawndale mental health clinic, said he’s had to navigate, “having one foot in the hood, and one foot in corporate America. The hood has taught me how to fight in corporate America, and corporate America has taught me how to navigate the hood.”
“But navigating and managing that skill set is not something that everyone knows how to do. And you don’t learn that in a textbook.” Jones said. “You learn that from being in the hood. You learn that from coming up and understanding what’s going on.”
Jones said it took him years to finally find a therapist who could truly get “to the root of the issue.”
“It felt like somebody took a shot and put it in my arm and gave me life,” Jones said of when he found the right therapist.
For Jones, treating his ADHD and mental health issues has been a long journey – and working to better collectively treat the city’s residents will be a process that he knows won’t happen overnight or under one administration. But he urged people struggling to take the first step.
“Go to your best friend, and say ‘I need help,’” Jones said.
“We all mask it, because it’s internal. It’s not a limp that you have. It’s not a crutch that you’re walking around in,” Jones said. “People don’t know if you’re struggling if you don’t tell them because we hide it so well. And then you have to be willing to accept the help that they give you. But you also have to tell them if that help is working or not.”
Tessa Weinberg covers Chicago politics for WBEZ.
