Recently, a resident of the RM of Richot made a request at a council meeting to host a home-based business at their property. This business would conduct workshops in a rural, natural environment for individuals working on their mental health.
For a number of reasons, including zoning issues and road access, that request was denied.
However, in the course of the discussion a local councillor made a comment about not being able to imagine anything “scarier on my property or the property beside me than somebody that’s not well mentally.”
Putting aside the way in which that perspective further victimizes individuals experiencing mental health crises, this incident is a curious local example of a phenomenon that for the past 40 years has been studied under the phrase “not in my backyard,” which is sometimes shortened to “NIMBY.”
The origin of this idea goes back to the early 1980s, if not earlier, and appeared in newspapers first as a description of citizens’ oppositional reactions to local land development. The implication of the phrase “not in my backyard” is not that individuals necessarily think a development in question shouldn’t happen anywhere—just that it shouldn’t happen here, near my property, where it could potentially affect me and/or the value of my land.
Initially, nimbyism has been brought up in relation to infrastructure development, waste facilities, and certain types of businesses—such as adult video stores, if anyone remembers what those were.
But the idea quickly became associated with people’s responses to accommodations or services that primarily benefit people dealing with disadvantages. Think: subsidized housing, halfway housing for people in substance use recovery, group homes for individuals with physical or mental disabilities, homeless shelters, and supportive housing for individuals with mental health issues. These have all become the primary target of NIMBY politics.
Even homes designed for families with lower incomes have been criticized for this reason, as has been seen in our local area—or anywhere else one cares to look.
Especially in the United States, some groups have leveraged NIMBY politics to support racially segregated neighbourhoods.
The outcry in Winnipeg over the “urban reserve” at the former Kapyong Barracks along Kenaston Boulevard shows that we Canadians are not immune from these prejudices.
When it comes to mental health supports being located in the community, few people making NIMBY arguments would say that individuals in recovery don’t deserve support. They certainly don’t believe our communities shouldn’t have homeless shelters at all.
Rather, they want them to be somewhere isolated, away from the rest of the community, thus minimizing the community’s exposure to perceived or assumed negative consequences. These hypothetical consequences often include damage to property, reduced property value, and the risk of violence to local families (especially children). They may ask, “Isn’t it better to put these services far away and avoid any possible dangers?”
These arguments are often made independent of actual data, which especially in cases of mental health issues show that the lack of access to services and the imposition of distance from support systems are clear predictors of poor mental health outcomes.
When we locate services in accessible places, people in need are able to reach them more easily—and these people tend to get better.
By contrast, there has been no consistent data to support the idea that mental health facilities of any kind negatively impact property values. Such concerns feed the growing public perception, reflected in the Ritchot councillor’s recent comments, that individuals with mental health issues represent a violent danger to society.
According to National Stigma Studies between 1996 and 2018, the public in North America increasingly perceives that people with mental health issues—specifically schizophrenia, alcohol issues, and major depression—are a danger to themselves or others. Pertaining to schizophrenia alone, 60 percent of those surveyed indicated that an individual with schizophrenia is a danger to others.
While this data is American, the perception in Canada is evolving in a similar direction.
The fear is not supported by the data. Individuals with mental health issues are drastically, overwhelmingly, more likely to be victims of violent crime than they are to be perpetrators.
In fact, a comprehensive review of many studies investigating the confluence of mental illness and violence found that if all violent acts committed by individuals with psychotic or mood disorders were eliminated from society, interpersonal violence would drop by a mere four percent. The vast majority of violent acts would continue unabated.
Clearly, the stigma is unfounded.
We should be extremely cautious when we feel the impulse to limit mental health supports in our communities. Statistically, one in three Canadians will experience a mental illness. It is likely that many of us who would say “not in my backyard” will one day need those services ourselves. Improving access to such services, making them more available to those who need them, and reducing barriers is a kind, supportive way in which we can further build community.
It makes good sense to reduce stigma through education and by creating opportunities for our neighbours to get the help they need. After all, if we are determined to avoid people in crisis, we will have lonely lives indeed.
