Tami Frea and Terri Refsguard have been working with the homeless in our community for more than a decade at the New Community Shelter.
They're used to working through issues such as job loss, affordable housing and addiction, but they've come across an uptick in mental illness.
"One of the biggest things we see is mental health issues. More and more major mental health issues. Beyond depression or situational depression because of what they're going through right now, but things like bipolar, Schizophrenia." said Tami Frea, the New Community Shelter program director. "What we see a lot of times is somebody may have mental health issues and maybe the go on medication and they start to feel better, so they're not having any symptoms and then they think they don't need to take their medication because they're not experiencing any symptoms. Then they start to downward spiral and then cycle tends to repeat itself."
"As they experience those symptoms they begin to not do normal daily tasks, they may not pay their rent anymore, they may isolate themselves or stop speaking to family and friends, or they lose their job." said Frea.
Nearly one in five adults in the United States experience some form of mental illness according to the American Psychiatric Association and one in 24 has serious mental illness.
The condition is treatable, but when it goes untreated one can experience changes in thinking, emotion and behavior.
"Throughout the last three to five years we've seen that grow from depression all the way to a serious mental health issues so how we deal with people has had to change." said Terri Refsguard, the New Community Shelter Executive Director.
Many of the local shelters tell us they work with outside agencies to get those suffering the help they need.
If you or someone you know is suffering from mental illness you can reach out to these local agencies:
300 Crooks Street
920-436-6800
Brown County Community Treatment Center
3150 Gershwin Drive
920-391-4700
