It’s been more than two years since Mayor Rahm Emanuel ignited protests around the city by closing six mental health clinics in low-income, high-crime neighborhoods.
He didn’t hold any hearings before he proposed the closures. He didn’t initiate a study or put together a task force.
And let’s face it: people who depend on public mental health clinics—because they’re too broke to pay for private service—aren’t exactly movers and shakers in this city.
One day that spring, two activists happened to bump into Cardenas in a coffee shop in Pilsen. They basically asked him: Dude, how come you won’t hold any hearings?
The activists didn’t give up. Over the last two years, they’ve continued to fight.
Then, out of nowhere, on July 17 Cardenas’s office sent out an agenda—signed by the alderman—stating that on July 21 his committee would hold a hearing on the clinics.
