Thurs 7pm ** ALL CITY GENERAL ASSEMBLY ** #SaveOurClinics Occupation, 63rd & Woodlawn

[Mental Health Movement]

The Mental Health Movement #SaveOurClinics occupation invites participants from Occupy Chicago, and every neighborhood and campus Occupy group in the city, to come together this Thursday at 7pm, at Woodlawn & 63rd, for the first City-Wide General Assembly.

The agenda will include:

1.General Welcoming
2.Statement from the Mental Health Movement
3. Upcoming event proposals from each of the local occupations
4. Facilitated Discussion about Mayor 1%'s budget of Austerity

More information on the Mental Health Movement occupation:

The Mental Health Movement occupation at the Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic is demanding that the city:

1. Keep all 12 city mental health clinics public, open, fully funded and fully staffed
2. Stop plans to privatize Chicago's 7 neighborhood health centers
3. Hire more doctors, therapists, nurses, social workers and other clinic staff
4. Reinstate the drug assistance program
5. Expand the public mental health safety net to cover unmet community need

This occupation is a part of an going campaign, led by patients from all 12 clinics facing closure, to defend Chicago mental health clinics from closure and privatization. The Mental Health Movement has been organizing around this issue, using a diversity of tactics including writing letters, meeting with politicians and health boards, taking direct actions, occupying their own clinic and now occupying a lot outside of the clinic.

Two of the patients who used to be served by Woodlawn have already been admitted to the psychiatric ward because they could no longer get the help they needed in their neighborhood.  Money being taken away from clinics while Chicago corporations get tax cuts is directly related to the Occupy movement's main issues.

For more info directly from the mouths of Woodlawn's patients, check out their press releases at:
http://www.facebook.com/PressCOMM/notes